An off-line Geometric Adaptive Control Scheme is applied to the milling machine to identify its guideway errors. In the milling process, the workpiece fixed on the bed travels along the guideway while the tool and spindle system is fixed onto the machine. The scheme is based on the exponential smoothing of post-process measurements of relative machining errors due to the tool, workpiece and bed deflections. The guideway error identification system consists of a gap sensor, a, not necessarily accurate, straightedge, and the numerical control unit. Without a priori knowledge of the variations of the cutting parameters, the time-varying parameters are also estimated by an exponentially weighted recursive least squares method. Experimental results show that the guideway error is well identified within the range of RMS values of geometric error changes between machining passes disregarding the machining conditions.