...or: how to store all your personal data on a network drive (e.g. a linux-samba share or a windows-fileserver) an still be able to access all your personal data offline

1. Windows Explorer - Tools --> Folder Options... Offline Files Tab should look like this...

the amount of disk space for the temporary offline files should be set according to the size of your personal data, which you want to store... (be sure to adjust this if your personal folder/drive grows)

now we need to set up the network drive to store the personal data.. go to the windows explorer --> Tools --> Map network drive... there you choose a drive letter (preferable a letter which would not conflict with future drive upgrades e.g. T: ) and the Path to your network share e.g. \\Zaphod\storage\text do not forget to activate to checkbox "Reconnect at logon"!! Don't choose a folder with gigabytes of stuff in it, this folder should only contain the data which you want to have always with you...

Now you should have a new drive in the explorer... right-click on that drive and click on the menu-entry "Make Available Offline" like shown in the image below

the following question:

answer with yes, because we want everything to be available offline...

so this is everthing to activate offline files in general, now the next thing to to is to force all applications to store there data on the new "personal drive"... the first step to to so is to get the Microsoft Powertoys which contain the usefull tool Tweakui. From within Tweakui you could change the physical location of your windows "My Document" folder (Tweakui --> My Computer--> Special Folders), which should be changed to your new network-drive.

Next step is to change the location of the outook mail file which can be done from within outlook via the File-->Data File Management menu...

If you put your outlook file on the network drive you MUST perform the steps below, because otherwise your outlook-file would not be available offline, because normal windows behaviour is to deny to make available offlinee certain filetypes.

how to make .pst files available offline:

this settings can result in a corrupted .pst file, therefore backup is strongly advised!

first step is to run the group-policy editor (Start --> Run... type in: gpedit.msc and hit OK)

there you duble-click on the marked Entry shown in the image below:

there you should at least remove the entry "*.pst" (Outlook Personal Folder Files) in the Extensions field, if you don't use outlook, you don't have to care about this setting...

now hit ok, perhaps it is a good idea to reboot now...