How to Move Offline Files Cache in Windows 7?

Question

On Vista systems, I've been using these instructions to relocate the "Offline Files Cache" from its default location of c:\csc. Works great.

However, these instructions do not work on Windows 7. There is small discussion about the issue going on on TechNet but nobody yet has a solution.

The problem is that the Migration Wizard has changed in Windows 7 and no longer provides a mechanism for doing this.

Answer 1

I've found the following to work well. I would advise to create a restore point prior to doing the following.

1. Create a folder for your offline file cache. Something like D:\Offline.
2. From an elevated command prompt type the following: Takeown /r /f C:\Windows\CSC
3. Open the Sync Center and go to Manage Offline Files.
4. Click Disable Offline Files and restart the machine.

5. From an elevated command prompt issue the following commands.

   rd /s C:\Windows\CSC

   mklink /J C:\Windows\CSC "D:\Offline" (or whatever you folder name is, but be sure to use the quotations if you have a space in the name)

6. Reopen the Manage Offline Files window and Enable Offline Files.

7. Restart the machine

All files/folders that are made available offline should now be redirected to whichever folder you specified.

Answer 2

There's another more recent (2010-01-29) suggested solution to this problem at the My Digital Life site, if you're comfortable using regedit. It's a rather complicated procedure.

Answer 3

This is from another Technet Social post:

When you make a network folder available offline, copies of all the files in that folder will be stored on your computer's hard disk.

Windows 7 also, includes an expanded ability to do fast remote queries of file shares, including on Windows Vista®, Windows Server® 2008, Windows® XP with Windows Search 4.0 installed, and earlier versions.

Client Side Caching as well as the Offline File service have some fundamental differences in Windows 7, but, the dynamics of this process seem to be the same. I'm not sure what instructions you used to move the cache file from Vista but depending on the process, you may be able to use a similar function when utilizing offline folders in Windows 7.

Could you check if this knowledge base article is different from what you used before?

Answer 4

All the stuff you need to know about offline files and more:

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff633429%28WS.10%29.aspx?ppud=4