Vista Offline Files aka CSC

Little tidbits about Offline Files in Vista:

• The feature is also know as Client Side Cache, aka CSC
• It is also implemented in XP, though there are differences in that earlier implementation
• XP's csccmd and cachemove utilities cannot be used on the Vista CSC implementation
• in both XP and Vista, the files are cached locally at c:\windows\CSC
• The permissions on this CSC dir don't allow direct viewing of the internal files, even by Administrator
• The space used by the CSC dir isn't properly reported by anything I have tried to read it with.
• In Vista, don't make the mistake of taking ownership of the CSC dir via the GUI utility; it will churn for hours and get nothing done!
• Instead use takeown /F c:\windows\CSC /A /R /D y - this will grant local Administrators ownership of the whole directory tree, automatically answering 'yes' anywhere it runs into permission problems. It will complete fairly rapidly unless you have a huge CSC dir.
• In Vista (I have not tried this on XP) you can delete stubborn files directly from the CSC directory, if you use the takeown trick above.
• Links:
  • http://offlinefiles.blogspot.com/
  • The Filing Cabinet (Technet blog)
  • Jonathan Hardwick answers CSC questions

The issue I ran into was that I had (I think) deleted a directory on the server, which still existed in my CSC directory on a Vista system. So every time I tried to sync, I would get errors for that directory and all of the files/dirs it contained (for a total of 108 errors). Additionally I couldn't open the files locally; Vista would complain the file doesn't exist, even though it would list it out in Explorer. Later, the 'ghost files/folders' seemed to prevent some syncs from happening at all, though curiously I still only got the original 108 errors. I tried the reinitialization process listed in KB230738; it failed to resolve the problem. I tried a few other procedures here and there; still got the same 108 errors and hit-or-miss sync of new files created on the Vista system.

(Sorry I can't provide screenshots or exact error output for the above.)

Finally I discovered this Moving the Offline Files Cache in Windows Vista article, which provided the missing clue. Takeown is native to Vista now. (Hark, the angels are singing!) I didn't move the cache; I simply used takeown to grant Administrator the necessary privs to browse the files, then deleted the offending folder and its children from the CSC folder directly. After which I switched back to my normal nonadmin account, initiated sync, and wept with joy as the sync completed without errors, and finally sync'd all the other files that had heretofore been only found on my Vista system.

It was a good day.