MOSS 2007 – local drafts folder functionality bug

Recently I discovered a bug when using the SharePoint local drafts folder functionality. This local drafts folder functionality allows you to edit checked out files while being disconnected from the network and check in the changes once you are connected to the network again … at least that’s what I expected.
It seems that when you open the file from your local drafts folder while being disconnected from the network, make changes and save it again, the link to the SharePoint document library is removed. When you try to check in the file from within a Microsoft Office application, you receive the following error message:

and when you try to check in the file in the SharePoint Document library, you receive the following error message:

The following steps where taken to reproduce the issue:

• Create an Excel file (DraftsTest.xlsx), add some content and save it locally on disk
• Upload the Excel file to a SharePoint document library with versioning enabled
• Check out the file and save to the local drafts folder
• Disconnect from the network
• Open the Excel file from the local drafts folder, make changes and save it again
• Connect to the network
• Open the Excel file from the local drafts folder and notice that the links to the SharePoint document library are gone
• Try to check in the file from within the SharePoint document library

As some people within the company really wanted this feature to be working, I logged a call with Microsoft Support.
A few phone calls later the conclusion was that this was a known issue and that there were no plans to fix this issue in the current version of MOSS but that this feature ‘might’ be working in MOSS 2010.

We’ll see …