Searching through indexed files slow on low connectivity

Hi everybody

I'm looking for a solution one month ago. I've been searching through the whole Google -.- but I still haven't an answer.

The following scenario:
On our company we all have Windows 7 SP1 installed. Offline Files are enabled and Indexing Options are activated for the following: Outlook, Offline Files, StartMenu, Users.

Searching files through the StartMenu works very well while we're connected to our company. A search result doesn't last more than 2 seconds.
But if we're connected to the company through a VPN connection, a search through the StartMenu last up to 15-20 seconds, which is very annoying.

So in my opinion, a connection to the network shouldn't care the indexing process of Windows. Why are the indexed files affected on a slow connectivity? An indexed file is something that donot need a network connection because it looks through windows and not on a server or something else.

Thank you for your help in advance.

Best HugePan

I just did away with offline files for similar reasons. When you connect by VPN, the system is able to access files on the server directly. Your local copy is only there in case the computer can't connect to the server. That's a common misconception about offline files...that they are local and should be fast. Not so. That's only the case when the server can't be reached and the computer falls back on the offline copy.

Honestly, if your search results are only 15-20 seconds when connected remotely, consider yourself lucky.

Ok, the slow start menu search experience when connected over VPN has really to do with the fact that our Start Menu is redirected. When I force "work offline" in the redirected user's start menu folders (\\server\appdata\userxy\start menu), then my start menu searches are fast again.
BUT I still don't understand why! In my understanding:
1: The index file is local, search should not need to crawl the start menu folder itself, just the local index file
2: Even if the search is done on the start menu folder, and not the index only: I thought that Vista and Win7 are always using the offline files for read operations, and the online files for write operations, when online folders are accessible. Is this a misperception? I'm sure I read this somewhere.

So if I am right, or the resirected user's start menu is not properly indexed, or searxh needs both index and folder, or/an my understanding of using offline files first even when online for read operation is wrong.

Can you comment on that?
Thanks.
JaLa

Based on my own usage and speeds, whenever a computer was connected by VPN, the file operations were done directly on the server store....and then copied down to the local system to reflect the server. When disconnected, and the server was unreachable, the kicks over to use the offline files. It was my understanding that this is why the offline files aren't stored as plain files (I remember trying many times to access or export docs from the CSC folder in XP).

I don't know enough about the process to be sure of the background details. All I can tell you is how it worked in my company until I killed the configuration when I upgraded the users to new computers. Whenever connected, the documents and searching through the documents were painfully slow.