G
Guest
I have seen many posts on similar topics and thought I would describe
something that worked for me to synch my home and office computers (both
running Outlook 2003 ... may not work for mixed editions). I am not a guru,
so take it FWIW.
I am trialing Outlooksync from Curosoft:
http://www.curosoft.com/outlooksync.html
It works well and creates a small sync file. If you call it with the
parameter -sync (i.e. "outlooksync.exe -sync") it will automatically complete
your synchronization.
Next I mapped a network drive on each computer to my online storage folder
at MSN. I entered this as my sync file location in OutlookSync. Another
service like X-drive would also work, probably. I fiddled with FTP, but you
need a regular path (e.g. Y:\folder\db.ols) set as your sync file location in
OutlookSync. If you are synching computers on a LAN it's even easier ... just
set-up / use a network drive, I suppose. Otherwise you can just carry a
thumb drive back and forth, etc.
Just the above does the trick. To automate the process I wrote (copied
mostly) a batch file to accomplish the synch and added it to logon and logout
scripts
(for more on logout script see the Windows XP expert zone on that topic:
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/...-8EB7A22FC6A0&dglist=&ptlist=&exp=&sloc=en-us ):
Batchfile:
if NOT "%username%" == "myusername" goto BatchEnd
start "outlooksync" /D C:\progra~1\outlooksync outlooksync.exe -sync
PING -n 21 127.0.0.1>nul
taskkill /im outlooksync.exe
:BatchEnd
<cleanup>
exit
the first line runs it onlyif I'm the one logging in
the PING line was the simplest way I could find to wait 20 seconds before
the taskkill closes the program (this was only necessary to get it to work
at logout)
This procedure synch's me to the shared sync file when I log on and off
(updates both ways)
This all works fine but I have XP-Home-Edition at my home which doesn't seem
to have a logout script possibility. I am using a batch file there to call
outlooksync each time I open and close Outlook (just put the path to the
batch file in the Outlook shortcut instead of the path to Outlook itself)
@echo off
start "outlooksync" /D C:\progra~1\outlooksync outlooksync.exe -sync
PING -n 21 127.0.0.1>nul
taskkill /im outlooksync.exe
start "Outlook" /wait "C:\Program Files\Microsoft
Office\OFFICE11\OUTLOOK.EXE" /recycle
start "outlooksync" /D C:\progra~1\outlooksync outlooksync.exe -sync
PING -n 21 127.0.0.1>nul
taskkill /im outlooksync.exe
exit
The wait command keeps the code waiting for Outlook to close before
continuing with the other synch.
Not pretty, but it works. I hope this helps somebody who is as non-savvy as
me! Any more clever ways to do this are also appreciated.
something that worked for me to synch my home and office computers (both
running Outlook 2003 ... may not work for mixed editions). I am not a guru,
so take it FWIW.
I am trialing Outlooksync from Curosoft:
http://www.curosoft.com/outlooksync.html
It works well and creates a small sync file. If you call it with the
parameter -sync (i.e. "outlooksync.exe -sync") it will automatically complete
your synchronization.
Next I mapped a network drive on each computer to my online storage folder
at MSN. I entered this as my sync file location in OutlookSync. Another
service like X-drive would also work, probably. I fiddled with FTP, but you
need a regular path (e.g. Y:\folder\db.ols) set as your sync file location in
OutlookSync. If you are synching computers on a LAN it's even easier ... just
set-up / use a network drive, I suppose. Otherwise you can just carry a
thumb drive back and forth, etc.
Just the above does the trick. To automate the process I wrote (copied
mostly) a batch file to accomplish the synch and added it to logon and logout
scripts
(for more on logout script see the Windows XP expert zone on that topic:
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/...-8EB7A22FC6A0&dglist=&ptlist=&exp=&sloc=en-us ):
Batchfile:
if NOT "%username%" == "myusername" goto BatchEnd
start "outlooksync" /D C:\progra~1\outlooksync outlooksync.exe -sync
PING -n 21 127.0.0.1>nul
taskkill /im outlooksync.exe
:BatchEnd
<cleanup>
exit
the first line runs it onlyif I'm the one logging in
the PING line was the simplest way I could find to wait 20 seconds before
the taskkill closes the program (this was only necessary to get it to work
at logout)
This procedure synch's me to the shared sync file when I log on and off
(updates both ways)
This all works fine but I have XP-Home-Edition at my home which doesn't seem
to have a logout script possibility. I am using a batch file there to call
outlooksync each time I open and close Outlook (just put the path to the
batch file in the Outlook shortcut instead of the path to Outlook itself)
@echo off
start "outlooksync" /D C:\progra~1\outlooksync outlooksync.exe -sync
PING -n 21 127.0.0.1>nul
taskkill /im outlooksync.exe
start "Outlook" /wait "C:\Program Files\Microsoft
Office\OFFICE11\OUTLOOK.EXE" /recycle
start "outlooksync" /D C:\progra~1\outlooksync outlooksync.exe -sync
PING -n 21 127.0.0.1>nul
taskkill /im outlooksync.exe
exit
The wait command keeps the code waiting for Outlook to close before
continuing with the other synch.
Not pretty, but it works. I hope this helps somebody who is as non-savvy as
me! Any more clever ways to do this are also appreciated.