Alternative to brief case

[Guest]

I was suprised to find briefcase does not work under Vista, but hope Sync
Centre would be the answer. I insterted my USB Flash key (byte star 4GB) and
Vista was happy to recognise it in SC and to set up a partnership, but called
it UDISK 2.0 and then proceeded to try and sync it with Windows Media Player.
I couldn't find any way around this and so have follow Julian's advice
(Subject: Briefcase Substitute/Replacement Available 5/9/2007 3:06 AM PST
By: Julian In: microsoft.public.windows.vista.file_management) and
started using Sync Toy:

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/using/digitalphotography/prophoto/synctoy.mspx

It is easy to set up, but am not sure it will tell me when I need to sync
things.

Also it seems a big step back not to improve on briefcase's functionality
and ease of use and to force people to use Sync Toy as an add on.... or have
I missed something simple?

Thanks for any help.

Simon

 

[Guest]

Hear, hear!

Yes, I have also experienced many problems with Vista Briefcase. It would
seem that such a foundational file tool would have extremely stable
functionality. I have about 2 weeks experience with Vista32 and have finally
gotten briefcase to work. How? Brute force. I have had to start over and over
and over.

The following examples are all relating to creating a briefcase on a compact
flash card. This is how I backed up files constantly and stably in Windows XP.

1. Sometimes I drag files to a new briefcase and the system locks up,
destabilizes my RAID (so it seems), and then the files never copy to the
briefcase. This seems to waste about an hour. Then I have to deal with the
RAID which takes another hour.

2. At other times I have gone to update the files in a briefcase and then
the briefcase icon converts to a regular folder icon and all the synching and
update functionality disappears. Sometimes restarting the computer has
restored this functionality, sometimes not.

3. At still other times, after finally getting many Gigabytes into the
briefcase, when I choose to update I get a message that all the files are
orphans.

4. The final problem that I am having is that I have created a new folder
within the main folder and this folder does not get added to the briefcase.

I do have at this point some kind of functionality with briefcase, but I
don't trust it at all. I guess I feel kind of ripped off. Vista is very
pretty but something as foundational as functional file synching is very
important. I have spent many hours waiting for briefcase to work only to find
out that not only did it not work but it destabilized my system. After all
this I would say that Vista is still a beta release.