SyncToy Blues

[Alex Balfour]

I've been using Microsoft SyncToy V1.4 without any problems on Vista
Home Premium for over six months. Yesterday, when I opened it to back up
some files, all my folder pair definitions had disappeared.

Any theories on why this might have happened? Where are folder pair
definitions stored? Any pointers much appreciated.

Alex Balfour

 

[Dave]

I've been using Microsoft SyncToy V1.4 without any problems on Vista Home
Premium for over six months. Yesterday, when I opened it to back up some
files, all my folder pair definitions had disappeared.

Any theories on why this might have happened? Where are folder pair
definitions stored? Any pointers much appreciated.

Alex Balfour

Do you have children?

 

[Jon]

I've been using Microsoft SyncToy V1.4 without any problems on Vista Home
Premium for over six months. Yesterday, when I opened it to back up some
files, all my folder pair definitions had disappeared.

Any theories on why this might have happened? Where are folder pair
definitions stored? Any pointers much appreciated.

Alex Balfour

Should be be in a file called


SyncToyDirPairs.bin

at

%userprofile%\Documents\SyncToyData

So it would appear that the information is user specific. If you've logged
in using another account, then it may be looking in that user's Documents
folder. At any rate search your hard drive for that file and it may turn up.

It's more or less readable in notepad, so you could probably extract the old
locations if you wanted to, if you do find it

notepad "%userprofile%\Documents\SyncToyData\SyncToyDirPairs.bin"

 

[Alex Balfour]

Do you have children?

Yes, aged 37 and 39, and no longer living with us!

Alex

 

[Alex Balfour]

Should be be in a file called


SyncToyDirPairs.bin

at

%userprofile%\Documents\SyncToyData

So it would appear that the information is user specific. If you've logged
in using another account, then it may be looking in that user's Documents
folder. At any rate search your hard drive for that file and it may turn up.

It's more or less readable in notepad, so you could probably extract the old
locations if you wanted to, if you do find it

notepad "%userprofile%\Documents\SyncToyData\SyncToyDirPairs.bin"

Jon,

There were lots of .bin files in that folder but not, unfortunately,
SyncToyDirPairs.bin. I also searched my C: drive for this file without
success. All in all, it's a bit of a mystery.

It won't take me long to recreate the various folder pairs I had before
and at least now I know what to back up as an insurance policy against
this happening again.

Thank you for your help.

Alex

 

[Jon]

Jon,

There were lots of .bin files in that folder but not, unfortunately,
SyncToyDirPairs.bin. I also searched my C: drive for this file without
success. All in all, it's a bit of a mystery.

It won't take me long to recreate the various folder pairs I had before
and at least now I know what to back up as an insurance policy against
this happening again.

Thank you for your help.

You're welcome. Yeah, it is a bit of a mystery. I had a look in SyncToy to
see if I could spot any 'Delete everything' type buttons, but couldn't spot
any - although I wouldn't want to search too closely in case I discover it
too ! ;-)

 

[Peter in New Zealand]

You're welcome. Yeah, it is a bit of a mystery. I had a look in SyncToy to
see if I could spot any 'Delete everything' type buttons, but couldn't
spot any - although I wouldn't want to search too closely in case I
discover it too ! ;-)

I had a similar issue with Synctoy, and also it suddenly started throwing up
an error report that complained about not being about to access the log file
because it was in use by another program. Now, that's just not right. The
actual backups went OK, until I also lost the profiles. So I dropped back to
the free version of Syncback, and that's worked fine for me on Windows 2000
Pro, XP, and now Vista, without the slightest hiccup.