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.

setup was unable to open information file games.inf

I received the above error message when trying to install FTP on XP from the installation disk.
Here is a fix.

If you receive the above message navigate to and find the file at c:\windows\inf\sysoc.inf

Change the value for games to read:
Games=;

Retry what you were doing, If it presents a further error i.e Pinball etc then do the same for that file.

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Office Outlook 2003 Error message - The operation failed due to an installation problem

Error messages such as the above can sometimes occur if you create a new user and try open outlook express. You may find, however, that outlook express is fine for other users.

(You should back up your registry before doing this, just in case!)

Got to Start and Run and type in regedit and click OK
Go to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\11.0\Common
Right-click on "Common" and choose "New". Choose "DWORD" Value and name it "UserData"
Double click on the DWORD (UserData) and set Value data to 1

Close the Registry Editor and open Outlook again

If this does not work try the same in the Office folder beside common

I.E HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\11.0\outlook

Best of luck

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