Issues Restoring a Redirected Folders Share / Offline Files Cache Wipe

[Guest JohnSmith78]

Gurus, I'm really hoping someone can help here. Here's the setup and situation.

 

 

Setup:

 

• 2008 R2 Windows File server with Folder Redirection enabled
  
• Windows 7 and Windows 10 clients, with offline file synchronization enabled on Desktop and Documents folders
  

 

 

Situation:

 

• File server died horribly, drive is not recoverable
  
• Backup server also died horrible, drive is not recoverable (yes, perfect storm)
  
• All clients still have usable data in the local CSC cache
  

 

 

What we need:

 

• We have tested a million different ways on how to re-create the folder redirection share on the same server, with the same share name, and same share/ntfs permissions. Every time we try, the users local cache gets wiped. Microsoft support states this is likely, and that there is no way around this. They even tested in their lab and found the same result
  

 

We have tried the following:

 

• Verify old and new share name setting here: Verify old and new Folder Redirection targets point to the same share before redirecting | Windows security encyclopedia
  
• Disabling "move contents to new location" on GPO
  
• Setting permissions exactly as they were
  
• Changing "SyncConflictHandling" to always favor the client (setting of 1) per this article: Configuring an Automatic Resolution Policy for Offline Files in Windows 7
  

 

 

Regardless of what we try, the client always wipes the CSC cache when the share is re-created. Is there any way around this? Of course we can have the users back up their data and then move it back, but this is very destructive and we would prefer not to take chances that someone forgets or makes a mistake.

 

 

What is troubling is that under normal circumstances when a user creates a file while offline and then connects to the network and syncs, the file uploads to the server (expected behavior) rather than deleting itself from the client. So why should this be any different?

 

 

Thanks in advance for any help you can provide. We are pulling our hair out!

 

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