Comments on: How-to: Synchronise your document folders between XP and Vista, using offline files.

By: lindsay

lindsay — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 12:33:54 +0000

Has anyone ever tried using the program Allway Sync?
I wonder if it does not do what I want – which is just keep my files on various computers in sync.

By: Chad

Chad — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 21:05:22 +0000

Any luck using sync center with windows 7 & xp. I get the files syncronized, but am unalbe to make changes to them on the windows 7 laptop? Permissions are set to full on each folder location.

By: puti

puti — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 11:45:21 +0000

great, thanks man… keep up the good work

By: Chris Duckworth

Chris Duckworth — Mon, 11 May 2009 06:13:06 +0000

Hi Lindsay, GUI stands for graphical user interface. It’s the front of a program where you can click on buttons. SyncToy comes with a command line tool and a graphical tool. For synctoy to run on a schedule, the command line option is required.
Synctoy vs offline files – Offline files are always in sync, Synctoy only syncs files when synctoy is run.
Offline files is the only way I know of to keep identical copies of files on both computers instantaniously. For offline files to work as described above, you need to change the locations of the files, but it’s not so bad when you only need to change the location of the files on Vista, as it is a built in feature.
If you don’t need your files to be synced any more than a day, there are a bunch of other syncing programs that are comparable to Synctoy, but many of them don’t include the possibility of scheduling. You could manually run them when you need to sync your files.

By: lindsay

lindsay — Sat, 09 May 2009 12:06:27 +0000

read what i could but not clear if this will sync happily between Vista and XP. Hopefully GUI is some modified version that doesnt require using a command tool. Is it better than Sync Toy. I havent tried either yet. I would just like something that would sync my docs between xp and vista, without having to move my locations around as described above. Perhaps its not doable?

By: John Swainston

John Swainston — Thu, 07 May 2009 18:42:27 +0000

A better alternative for those who don’t have the required Vista versions is to use “robocopy”. This is a tool which used to be included in the addon resource packs for the server editions of Microsofts products.

Robocopy (robust copy) is a command line tool now included with Vista which allows you to robustly copy files from one point to another. It has dozens of options, one of which is to mirror two directories (/MIR from memory).

If you have to safely move files between machines I’d definately give it a go. I use it to synch directories between machines over both LAN and WAN links, so it’s ability to retry failures and continue copying a file where it last left off is ideal.

Just google it for several pages with handy guides on using it.

By: Laer Carroll

Laer Carroll — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 03:04:50 +0000

Be aware that when you set up a local network that you have to adjust ALL your firewalls to let your two (or more) computers talk to each other.

MS Windows will normally set up just those holes in its firewall to let file sharing happen. But Norton Internet Security will block them unless you specifically open up those holes or turn it off entirely.

By: Chris Duckworth

Chris Duckworth — Sat, 13 Sep 2008 04:38:53 +0000

Hi Lindsay, if you "move"(explained above) the location of the documents in vista, to the share drive, the one location is used, and therefor the same files. If you update files offline on both machines, whichever was saved last takes preference, or you will get sync conflicts. Check out this article for another method which uses synctoy. It will give you control over which files are updated from which direction.

By: lindsay

lindsay — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 13:29:37 +0000

using this method, you end up with something that syncs both ways? Ive just a got a vista desktop and would like it to work with my xp laptop. As yet i have not created any files in My Docs vista, but had thought about transfering them over using the Easy Transfer wizard. Suppose I had done, or have files alrady in My Docs, would your arrangement just ignore the existing files in favour of the ones on the XP machine? I have read elsewhere that Sync Center needs to Vista machines to work properly. Does your method get round that? If I run Sync Center currently, with the default file settings, the sync works fine, but the synced files dont show up anywhere! (other than in Sync Center

By: Nathan Reuben

Nathan Reuben — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 11:39:03 +0000

Hi i would just like to thank you for a great article, it really helped me.
Many Thanks!