Offline folder synchronization in Windows XP is a fantastic way of enabling network shares/drives (or part of) to be available for use when away from the network. When you come back to the network the changes are uploaded to the servers … but sometimes things go wrong and it needs to reinitialise. This can happen when the network name for the network share has changed, or other users have logged onto the computer (resulting in their folders also trying to synchronize).
The process is essentually the ‘turning it off and on again’ for syncronisation – it’ll force it to start from scratch, getting rid of any previous issues.
Please note, before doing this process please ensure that there are no important files which haven’t synchronized yet. They will be deleted!! However the network copy will be safe.
The reset the offline folders and force it to delete its cache:
1. Click on the Windows Start button, select Run
2. Type in mobsync and click OK
3. From here you can see what is trying to synchronize and where from
4. Open My Computer, select the tools menu then folder options
5. Open the Offline Files tab
6. Hold ctrl and shift whilst clicking on the Delete Files button
7. Click OK for the cache to be deleted
8. After the cache is deleted, force the synchronization to start again
9. Open mobsync (from steps 1-3) and verify that the correct information is now there.