Offline files error message "Files of this type cannot be made available offline"

Offline files is a great feature that allows a user to still have access to network files even when they are not connected to the network. Offline files works by creating a copy of the network file locally on the hard disk. When the user tries to access network files whilst not connected to the network, the files are loaded from the local copy - giving the illusion that they are still connected to the network.

When the user reconnects to the network, the network files and local files are synchronised. However, by design, there are certain file types cannot be synchronised and used by offline files such as microsoft database files (.mdb) and Outlook email files (.PST)

If Windows tries to make one of these files available offline you will be presented with an error message stating "Files of this type cannot be made available offline".

So how do we stop these annoying messages from coming up? Note: This will only suppress and stop the annoying messages from coming up, it will NOT make these particalar file types available offline.

Open a command prompt window by clicking on Start - Run and type CMD and press enter.

Enter the following and press enter.

reg add "hkcu\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\NetCache\
ExclusionErrorSuppressionList" /ve

Now type the following and press enter.

reg add "hkcu\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\NetCache\
ExclusionErrorSuppressionList" /v .mdb /t reg_dword /d 0x1

Note that .mdb is the particular file type that you are referring to. This can be replaced with .pst, .dbx etc.

A restart is necessary in order for these settings to kick in.

Microsoft have listed an alternative way of fixing this issue here which involved editing group policy.