Laptop / PC data synchronization

[Guest]

Hi
I travel abroad quite a lot taking my laptop with me, but whilst at home I
prefer to use my PC, and want to synchronize the data on both computers.
Do I need to buy Synchronization software, or is there a facility within
Windows XP SP2, that will do this for me ?
If I need to purchase software, how do I find a choice of good suitable
programs?
I have a considerable amount of music, photo,s and video and data stored on
my laptop or PC and also use a WD (500GB My Book Premium 1C USB/Firewire)
removeable drive for backups, which I can access from my laptop and PC.
This is an area completly new to me, and I would really appreciate any
guidance or assistance, thank you
joco London

 

[Guest]

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

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[Lanwench [MVP - Exchange]]

Hi
I travel abroad quite a lot taking my laptop with me, but whilst at
home I prefer to use my PC, and want to synchronize the data on both
computers. Do I need to buy Synchronization software, or is there a
facility within Windows XP SP2, that will do this for me ?
If I need to purchase software, how do I find a choice of good
suitable programs?
I have a considerable amount of music, photo,s and video and data
stored on my laptop or PC and also use a WD (500GB My Book Premium 1C
USB/Firewire) removeable drive for backups, which I can access from
my laptop and PC. This is an area completly new to me, and I would
really appreciate any guidance or assistance, thank you
joco London

There's Offline Files (in WinXP Pro), but I am not a fan. Check out SyncToy
as recommended in the other reply, or check out SecondCopy (shareware),
which I personally use all over the place.

Re your external hard drive - note that syncing works best if it's limited
to two sources/destinations. I don't know that I'd be inclined to sync using
three. I'd just use that for backups.....and for those, either use NTBackup,
or imaging software such as Acronis (which is fabulous), or even just a
simple robocopy script/batch file to copy individual data files over to the
backup drive.

 

[Andrew Murray]

XP has a "transfer files and settings" wizard. You don't need any
third-party softare.

I believe (others can confirm this) the most simple way is to hook up to the
two machines with either a USB cable or cat5/cat6 crossover cable so you can
the computers. You can probably do it if you had a wireless network as
well.

I believe in earlier versions of Windows there was something called
"Briefcase" that had something to do with this sort of procedure - don't
know if its part of XP now (was in Win9x versions like Win98, Win95 and ME).

Otherwise, you could burn whatever files you need to CD or copy to disk or
USB Flash drive, and then transfer the files that way to the other computer.

 

[Gerry]

Hi, Joco, not knowing if my earlier reply was sent... I have been using a
program for years for the same purpose. The name: "SecondCopy2000" by
www.centered.com
Gerry


"Lanwench [MVP - Exchange]"

 

[Lanwench [MVP - Exchange]]

Hi, Joco, not knowing if my earlier reply was sent... I have been
using a program for years for the same purpose. The name:
"SecondCopy2000" by www.centered.com
Gerry

Hi - I think you meant to reply to the OP, not to me. But I recommended
SC2000 in my own post as well - it's a good program.

"Lanwench [MVP - Exchange]"

There's Offline Files (in WinXP Pro), but I am not a fan. Check out
SyncToy
as recommended in the other reply, or check out SecondCopy
(shareware), which I personally use all over the place.

Re your external hard drive - note that syncing works best if it's
limited to two sources/destinations. I don't know that I'd be
inclined to sync using three. I'd just use that for backups.....and
for those, either use NTBackup, or imaging software such as Acronis
(which is fabulous), or even just a simple robocopy script/batch
file to copy individual data files over to the backup drive.

 

[Lanwench [MVP - Exchange]]

XP has a "transfer files and settings" wizard. You don't need any
third-party softare.

Actually - that's useful for migrating your profile/data from one PC to
another, but it isn't meant to sync data.

I believe (others can confirm this) the most simple way is to hook up
to the two machines with either a USB cable or cat5/cat6 crossover
cable so you can the computers. You can probably do it if you had a
wireless network as well.

I believe in earlier versions of Windows there was something called
"Briefcase" that had something to do with this sort of procedure -
don't know if its part of XP now (was in Win9x versions like Win98,
Win95 and ME).

IIRC Briefcase still exists, but it stinks. There are better alternatives
now.

 

[Guest]

I have a similar need and uses Backer 5.04. Never had a problem.

You can add directories to be synchronized, restrict it to certain file
extensions, exclusion of certain subdirectories or files, etc.

It works for me