Administrators can disable Offline Files usage for all the members in a domain by configuring group policy settings. Steps for this are given below.
- Open group policy object editor. (To know how to open this read the post Opening group policy object editor in 2003 DC )
- Expand Computer Configuration node
- Expand Administrative templates node
- Expand Network
- Select offline files. Now in the right side pane you can see different policy settings related to offline files usage.
- Double click on the first setting i.e ‘Allow or disallow use of the offline files feature’.
- Select the check button ‘disabled’
- Click on ‘Apply’ and then click on ‘OK’
- Close Group policy object editor.
The steps are similar if one want to disable ‘Offline Files’ on a single machine. Administrator can open local machine group policy by running gpedit.msc and then do the above steps.
This does not work. It greys out the "Enable Offline Files" checkbox, but it does not uncheck it.
I think this group policy has a bug. If offline files is already enabled on the client it does not switch it off but just greyes out the option.
So looks like the GP only disallows the user further changing the settings.. for the clients which have already disable offline files it would continue to be switched off and prohibits users to enable it. And for the clients which are using offline files it continues to be on and prohibits users from disabling it..
Can you confirm if the same is happening in your case too?
And as a solution I would suggest to use the registry key CSCEnabled and use custom ADM file to import into your group policy for setting this registry key on every computer in the domain.