Desktop icons disappear and loose position when using offline file

This has been reported by several of our users. We're using a freeware
utility to save the icon positions and restore them every time this happens,
but I wonder if anyone knows of a way to fix this.

Our laptops use offline files to allow users to work offline. Because we
use roaming profiles and re-directed folders, the offline files cache also
includes our users desktop and My Document folders.

Quite regularly our users return to the office and find that their icons
disappear from the desktop. Refreshing the display brings the icons back but
they have lost their positions and revert to the left hand side of the screen.

I now believe that this happens any time users save files to, or delete
files from the desktop while offline. When they return to the network
everything appears fine until windows synchronises the offline files. During
synchronisation the desktop icons disappear and have to be reset by the user.

Does anybody know if there is any work around for this?