Windows 7: Offline files doen't update files changed locally

My offline files seems to work offline all the time, even when it shows me being online. I sync most of my business files to my laptop for working at home at night.

When I edit a file from my Win 7 (pro, 64-bit) laptop, then go to edit it again, I get the version I had changed, but no one else does. This is causing huge difficulty, because my employees will start working in a sales forecast spreadsheet after I reconnect to the network and supposedly sync, but they don't get the latest version. Even doing a manual sync seems to make no difference.

It seems that if someone else edits something on the network share, it does update to my laptop, but when I update something, it doesn't transfer so that everyone else can use it?

Where should we begin looking?

It may help if you enable transparent caching which can be enabled through Group Policy. I'm not sure this is the same problem but it seems to apply to your problem.

Windows 7 introduces a new feature for Offline Files & Folders called “Transparent Caching”. With transparent caching, the first time a user opens a file in a shared folder, Windows 7 reads the file from the server and then stores it in a cache on the computer’s hard disk drive.

The second and subsequent times a user reads the same file, Windows 7 retrieves the cached file from disk instead of reading it from the server. To provide data integrity, Windows 7 always contacts the server to ensure the cached copy is up-to-date.

The cache is never accessed if the server is unavailable and updates to the file are always written directly to the server. Transparent Caching is not enabled by default and can be enabled through Group Policy at Computer configuration | Administrative Templates | Network | Offline Files | Enable Transparent Caching.

Is that what you really mean? How do we write directly to the server if it's unavailable?

Thanks - Rowan