Wouldn’t it be nice if they were able to bring all their email accounts together into the one place, but still have control of them individually. This is quite possible with Exchange, and it works fantastically well.

I love having access to an Exchange server. It beats other mail protocols hands down for accessibility and control. Your mail can be accessed through a web front-end, or a full blown desktop client in the form of Outlook. Once you have your mail you can send off messages to and from a supported phone with Push technology. There is not much you can’t do with it.

I have four email accounts that each go into my Exchange account. This means that I am able to access each and every email, from any of the accounts, through my email client, my phone, or through a web interface.

This article will show you how to set this up for yourself. It is really very simple to set up, and the time saved from accessing various account individually will be significant. There will be much less email clutter to tidy up as well. There will only be one Inbox that you need to control and monitor.

There is only one minor drawback that I have come across with this setup. If you want to receive email from multiple accounts on your phone, or the web interface, you will need to leave a computer on to receive the mail from the various accounts. This computer will bring the mail from the various accounts into the one location. You may be able to scam such features from your Exchange Administrator if you are very lucky.

This is not an issue if you only access your mail from the one computer.

Setting up the multiple accounts:

This configuration works in both Microsoft Outlook 2003 and 2007, though it may work in other email clients. This article is written specifically for Microsoft Outlook 2007. Setting this up between the two clients is slightly different, but it is very easy so I am sure you will be able to follow this if you are using Microsoft Outlook 2003.

The first step is to make sure that your main account is an Exchange server account. This is the account/mailbox that all the other mail will be viewable from as we add them.

The next step is to create your additional accounts. We will run through this quickly. Ideally, these additional accounts will be POP3, or HTTP protocols. It is not possible to access multiple Exchange accounts from the one Exchange account. To do that you will need to utilise the “Delegate” features.

Follow these steps:

Click “Tools”
Click “Account Settings”
Click “New”
Follow the wizard

The final step is to ensure the new mail will go into your Exchange mailbox, rather than a new set of Personal Folders. It will probably do this by default.

Click “Change Folder”

Here you can create a folder specifically for your new email account, or you can send the mail directly to the Inbox.

If you want to send mail from multiple computers, and you decide to setup multiple accounts on each computer, you should decide which computer will act as the server. If you receive mail from POP3 accounts on multiple computers, you may find that you end up with multiple copies of the same email message.

You can disable receiving mail from certain accounts, within Outlook. Open the Tools Menu > Send/Receive > Send/Receive Settings. You can then remove the accounts you don’t want to receive mail from out of the default send/receive group.

Sending email:

When sending a new email message, you are able to select which account the mail is sent from. Simply write your email and click on the “Accounts” button. You will then be able to pick which account the message is sent from. It is very quick and simple.

Replying and Forwarding email:

If you use this Exchange setup, it will work well for you when replying and forwarding email. The account that your email will be sent from, will default to the account you received the email on.

You can easily change which account you send the message from by clicking on the “Accounts” button as shown above. You then see a simple pull down menu with all the available accounts which you can choose between.

If you are not on the computer setup as above, you can create the accounts you want to send the mail from, or send mail from your Exchange account. If you are concerned about making your private email address public, consider one of the first options instead.

Filtering mail into individual folders:

If you want to keep your emails from the various accounts separate, you are able to create a folder for each account, and then use rules or the “Change Folder” option in “Account Settings”, to send mail as it is received into their corresponding folder.

If you want your sent email to be split up according to the account they were sent from, create a folder within “Sent Items” for each account. You can then create a rules to filter your sent emails into each of these folders as each email is sent.

I don’t bother with this step as it would force me to look in multiple folders to access my mail. If you do want to use separate folders for each account, it may be worth setting up your rules so that they send the messages into their folder only once the email has been read.

Signatures:

It is possible to setup a different email signature for each account you send your mail from. Once this is setup in Outlook, your signature will change automatically as you change your account. This works really well if you have both your work email and your personal email working together in the same Exchange account.

To set this up, follow these steps:

Click “Tools”
Click “Options”
Click “Mail Format”

Create a signature for each account, or however many signatures you want. Then select each account and associate it with a signature.

Once you click “OK”, your signatures will follow you around as if you were using multiple email clients.

Conclusion:

Outlook was designed for this functionality. There is nothing magical about this configuration, we are just making the most out of Exchange and Outlook.

I hope you have enjoyed this article and found it useful. Please stick around and check out some other articles at Inspect My Gadget.

Vista task scheduler is a very powerful tool. We can set it up to run programs only if the computer is idle. This serves two purposes. The backups will be made automatically and the backups will not interfere with your normal usage.

A huge added bonus is that we can use any backup program we like. We are not limited to backup programs that have scheduling built in. All we need is a backup program that can start backing up as soon as it is launched, which just about all of them can do.

This article is specifically for Windows Vista. XP’s scheduled tasks does not have the idle features built in, though it may be able to be achieved with a third party program.

Setup your backup/sync program:

The first step is to set up your backup program so that it can be launched from a shortcut or the command line. Launching it should launch the sync or backup.

You will need to look up these instructions for your individual program to figure out how to make this happen. The information should be readily available for any backup utility that is well known. What good is a sync or backup program that is too complicated to use?

Setting up Task Scheduler:

Open “Task Scheduler” (inside accessories of the start menu)
Click “Create New Task” (not basic)
Give it a name “Backup or Sync”
Go to the “Triggers” tab
Click “New” (defaults to schedule)
Enter the frequency and time you want your backup/sync to occur(I recommend to do it hourly as it will not run if you are by your computer)
Click “OK”
Go to the “Actions” tab
Click “New” (defaults to run program)
Browse for your program and put in the necessary arguments; E.g. -run
Click “OK”
Go to the “Conditions” tab
Here, define how long you want the computer to be idle before activating the backup/sync.
Click “OK”

You have now configured all the basics. There are many other options you can change to suit your needs, but they go beyond what is required to sync or backup.

Conclusion:

As you can see, this is very easy to setup. Gone are the days of manually starting your backups or syncing. When your hard drive crashes, you can be calm, knowing that your important information is tucked away somewhere safe.

I hope you have enjoyed this article and found it useful. For more effort saving types check out some other articles at Inspect My Gadget.

It is a real hassle to remove each of these duplicate items individually, and in the past I have manually removed them. Today after a fresh install of Outlook, I had around 150 duplicate items! I needed to find a better way to automate the removal of these. I came across a number of utilities that would do the job. Some of them are free and others are commercial or shareware releases. After a bit of testing Outlook Duplicate Items Remover (ODIR) came out on top.

ODIR scans your Outlook mail, contacts, tasks and calendar for duplicate items. If an item is found to be a duplicate it moves the item into a folder called ODIR Duplicate Items. You can then look through this folder and then delete it’s contents once you are comfortable that you don’t need any of them.

There are a number of reasons I preferred ODIR over the other utilities I tested out. First of all, it is free which is always a big selling point for me. ODIR had fewer options than many of the others, but in the end I felt most comfortable using it as it did not automatically delete duplicate items (as most of the others did). Instead, ODIR moved them into a separate directory which I could quickly sift through to confirm that no legitimate mail was removed.

If you find yourself in the same situation, do yourself a favour and download ODIR. It is so quick and easy to use, making this huge hassle a piece of cake.

ODIR is available for free from Vaita. Tested on Outlook 2007 in Vista.

Exchange servers have a number of features such as Outlook Web Access and Push Email, that help us have greater access to our email. Push Email helps us get email to our devices as soon as it hits the server.

If you have access to both an Exchange server and a recent Windows Mobile device (post WM5), you can get email to and from your device better than what is possible with any other method.

This article will show you how to connect your Windows Mobile 5 device to an Exchange server. It is not very hard to get up and running, but there are a few terms which are a little confusing.

This article is written for Windows Mobile 5, but I hope it will assist people with Windows Mobile 6 devices also.

Test Setup:

• I will be using an Ipaq rw6828 running Windows Mobile 5.
• I will be connecting to an Exchange Server 2003.
• No additional software is required to make this work.

While Exchange servers can probably be set up in various ways, I can only go from the experience I have had. A few years back, when our new Exchange administrator said that he couldn’t figure out how to connect his Windows Mobile device to the server, I had already been on it for a week. I passed on my documentation then and it has been used around the company ever since.

Find out your server information:

The amount of times friends have asked me to setup their email connections without them knowing server names, usernames and passwords is numerous, making my job just about impossible. Before you start attempting this, collect the following information.

1. Your username
2. Your password
3. Your domain (often your company name)
4. Outlook Web Access address (not the Exchange Server)

If you are unsure, I am sorry to say… you will need to contact your help desk or server administrator.

Setting it up:

Exchange and Windows Mobile devices were designed to work together and there are 3 ways that I know of to get the two to talk to each other.

• Setting up the connection using ActiveSync
• Setting up the connection using WMDC
• Setting up the connection using your device

No matter which of the options you use, the settings will filter across to the other two during a sync. All you need to do is find the setup you feel most comfortable with. Each option is fairly straightforward and the results are identical.

If you are on an expensive data plan, you are probably best to take a WMDC or ActiveSync option as the initial data costs will be much lower than syncing directly through a GPRS link.

All the images below can be enlarged by clicking on them.

Setting up the connection using your device: 

Ensure you have a wireless Internet connection of some type on your device, and make sure it is active.

Open up ActiveSync on your device

Tap “Menu”

Tap “Add Server Source…”

Enter in your Outlook Web Access address as your server name. There is no need to put the http:// or https://

Leave the SSL box ticked – you may want to toggle this if you have problems.

Tap “Next”

Enter your username, password and domain.

Tick “Save Password”

Tap “Next”

In this window, you get to choose what you want to sync. By default, all the boxes are ticked. If you want to play with these settings, press settings. You can’t do any damage here so have a play.

The only thing I would be careful about is syncing all your email. There probably won’t be enough space on your device and you are unlikely to ever look at it. Take a minimalistic stance.

Tap “Finish”

Now all the settings are done.

Open up ActiveSync and select “Sync”. You should not be connected to WMDC or ActiveSync for this step.

When the sync is completed successfully, disconnect your device.

Scroll down to the testing area.

Setting up the connection using ActiveSync:

Start off by connecting your device to ActiveSync. If you have not done this yet, read this Inspect My Gadget article which shows you how to connect your device to ActiveSync via Bluetooth. If you are using USB, install ActiveSync and plug in your device.

Go into tools and select “Add Server Source…”

Enter in your Outlook Web Access address as your server name. There is no need to put the http:// or https://

Leave the SSL box ticked – you may want to toggle this if you have problems.

Enter your username, password and domain.

Tick “Save Password”

Click “OK”

In this window, you get to choose what you want to sync. By default, all the boxes are ticked. If you want to play with these settings, press settings. You can’t do any damage here so have a play.

The only thing I would be careful about is syncing all your email. There probably won’t be enough space on your device and you are unlikely to ever look at it. Take a minimalistic stance.

Click ”OK”

Now all the settings are done.

Get the sync rolling while you are still connected. This will be quicker (and probably cheaper) than using a GPRS connection.

Open ActiveSync on your device and tap “Sync”. You should see that all the data is being transferred to your device. When the sync is completed successfully, disconnect your device.

Scroll down to the testing area.

Setting up the connection using WMDC:

Start off by connecting your device to WMDC. If you have not done this yet, read this Inspect My Gadget article which shows you how to connect your device to WMDC via Bluetooth. If you are using USB, install WMDC and plug in your device.

Under Mobile Device Settings, Select “Sync wirelessly with Exchange Server”

Enter in your Outlook Web Access address as your server name. There is no need to put the http:// or https://

Leave the SSL box ticked – you may want to toggle this if you have problems.

Enter your username, password and domain.

Tick “Save Password”

Click “Set Up”

The final step is to configure what we want to sync. In the main window of WMDC, under Mobile Device Settings, select “more>>”

Select “Change content sync settings”

In here tick what you want to sync. Most importantly your contacts and email.

Click “Save”

Now all the settings are done.

Get the sync rolling while you are still connected. This will be quicker (and probably cheaper) than using a GPRS connection.

Open ActiveSync on your device and tap “Sync”. You should see that all the data is being transferred to your device. When the sync is completed successfully, disconnect your device.

Testing:

To test that everything is working correctly, try deleting a few emails and/or sending yourself an email from your desktop computer.

Enable your Wifi, GPRS or similar connection on your device.

Open up ActiveSync on your device and select sync.

You should see that the messages have been deleted and that you have received a new email. It may take a minute or two for the email to come in, but as I tested this out, the message arrived on my device around 10 seconds before it reached my desktop.

Conclusion:

I hope that you have had success in connecting to your Exchange server from your Windows Mobile device. You are now experiencing some of the latest technology available, and making the most out of your device. 

I would love to hear what any Windows Mobile 6 users have to say about this article.

Please stick around and check some other articles at Inspect My Gadget.

Last week I posted an article about a handful of network clipboards that are available for free on Windows PCs. I was not able to get any of them to communicate to each other between Windows XP and Vista.

Over the week, I came across the open-source utility BeyondCopy 1.24, which is yet another network clipboard. I expected the same sort of luck as I had with the other programs I had tested, but I was pleasantly surprised when BeyondCopy worked for me first time without any fuss.

I installed the utility on each computer and added the other computers hostname to the list of acceptable computers. I opened up Notepad and typed in some text and copied it to the clipboard. I switched to the other computer and pressed paste, and clipboard followed me.

BeyondCopy runs in the task tray on both computers and can be started up with Windows. You are able to have more than two computers sharing the same clipboard. It is fairly secure as you have to put in the computer hostnames of all the computers you want to share the clipboard of, into the client on each computer. If you only do it on one, BeyondCopy will not connect. You are even able to change which port BeyondCopy uses for added security.

The documentation claims that the software will copy files but I had no luck with this. The help documentation isn’t too clear for this. I was able to copy text flawlessly, which is what I initially set out to do.

Now I have to get used to this new feature on my network. The impossible has become possible. I am already reaping the benefits as I have used it in writing this article. This one is a keeper!

BeyondCopy is free and available from their Website.

If you want to sync folders over networked drives, this guide may help you also. There are more detailed articles at Inspect My Gadget on syncing documents between two networked computers. Find them here.

On the very odd occasion you do want to sync folders on a single computer, it is not too hard to achieve. There are a number of applications available to help you do this, but many of them cost money. Windows has a solution by a command in the command prompt which will work on all Windows PC’s. Microsoft also offers a program called SyncToy which does the same thing with a nice GUI interface.

This is a two part article. In Part 1 we looked at using xcopy to sync your folders, and in Part 2 will look at how to use SyncToy.

Part 2 will cover the following topics.

• How to get SyncToy
• Configuring SyncToy
• How to schedule SyncToy to run a sync at a set time.

SyncToy is a great solution for people who require to sync local or networked folders, as it is easy to use and it can be scheduled.

With the methods in this article, the folders will only be the same after a sync which you have scheduled to run, or by running the sync manually. I am not aware of any applications which will recognise changes as they are made and force a sync at that time.

It is very important before you play with this, that you backup your data as you may need to do a little tweaking to get it working right for you.

Where to get SyncToy:

SyncToy is a free download from Microsoft.com and is one of their many Power Toys which help you get more out of Windows.

Download it here. It is a quick and easy install. Just follow the prompts.

When you run it for the first time, you should see the following screen.

Configuring SyncToy: 

SyncToy is very easy to setup and use. It doesn’t really need much of an explanation, because once you open it, SyncToy will guide you through. We will run through it quickly.

Click “Create new folder pair”
Browse to find your source and click “Next”
Browse to find your destination and click “Next”
Select your sync type – Probably Synchronise or Echo
Name your folder pair and click “Finish”

It is now configured and you can preview the sync to see if it will do what you want. If you are happy with the results, click Run and your sync will occur

Scheduling SyncToy to sync automatically:

It is nice to think that we will backup our data regularly on our own accord, but if you are like the other 4 billion or so computer users in this world, you would find it best to schedule it so you don’t need to check up on it again.

This is slightly different between XP and Vista, but the theory is the same so I will run through how to do this in XP. Vista calls their scheduler “Task Scheduler”, where as XP calls its scheduler “Scheduled Tasks”. Both can be found by clicking “Start” -> “Accessories” -> “System Tools”.

Click “Add Scheduled Task”
Click “Next”
Click “SyncToy”
Select how frequently you would like it to happen. If your computer is on all the time, 3am is ideal. If you don’t have your computer on much, make it happen as your computer starts. This is completely up to you.
Follow the date prompts
Enter your usernames password and confirm it.
Open Advanced properties
Put a -r after SyncToy.lnk.. eg \SyncToy.lnk” -r
This will cause SyncToy to automatically sync as it is opened.
Press “OK” and your done.

You are still able to launch SyncToy manually if you require it to happen instantly, but otherwise, your folders will always be synced at the scheduled time.

Please check out part one of this article which covers xcopy, so you can compare the two methods and figure out which you would prefer to use. I hadn’t played with xcopy much before writing this article, and I am thinking I may well end up using it over SyncToy. I feel like there is more control with it.

I hope you have enjoyed this article and found it useful. Please stick around and check out some other articles at Inspect My Gadget.

If you want to sync folders over networked drives, this guide may help you also. There are more detailed articles at Inspect My Gadget on syncing documents between two networked computers. Find them here.

On the very odd occasion you do want to sync folders on a single computer, it is not too hard to achieve. There are  number of applications available to help you do this, but many of them cost money. Windows has a solution by a command in the command prompt which will work on all Windows PC’s. Microsoft also offers a program called SyncToy which does the same thing with a nice GUI interface.

This is a two part article. Part 1 will look at using xcopy to sync your folders, and Part 2 will look at using SyncToy.

Part 1 will cover the following topics.

• How to use xcopy
• How to put xcopy into a batch file
• How to schedule the batch file to run a sync at a set time.

The reason I like xcopy is that it is quick to setup, and you do not require any additional software to get it to work. This means it is good for 1 off syncs. SyncToy will be the best solution for most people who require to sync more frequently.

This two part article was originally going to be much shorter, but I got typing and my fingers wouldn’t shut up. I recommend that beginners read the entire article to prevent disaster and to get all the extra information. Advanced users will probably be able to skim through most of it, wary that a typing error may result in lost data.

I am generally a big fan of off-line files for smaller syncs over networked drives. This does not work with two folder on a single computer, so we have to look at other methods. The advantage of off-line files is that the data on both computers, while the computers are connected, will be the same even if a sync has not taken place recently.

With the methods in this article, the folders will only be the same after a sync which you have scheduled to run, or by running the sync manually. I am not aware of any applications which will recognise changes as they are made and force a sync at that time.

It is very important before you play with this, that you backup your data as you may need to do a little tweaking to get it working right for you. You may overwrite files with wrong versions if you make a typo. This is particularly important with xcopy. The easiest way to backup your data is to use Windows File Explorer to copy your files to a safe place. I can’t be held responsible for lost data. Do this at your own risk.

A bit of information about XCOPY:

Xcopy is an MS-DOS command which expands on the normal copy command, giving you a thorough list of switches to help you get it to work just as you want. The advantages of the xcopy command over the copy command is that it lets you copy only updated files, by a entering a series of switches. The copy command will copy the whole directory and prompt you if files need to be overwritten.

For most backup purposes, you only need to go one way. One of your folders will be a work folder(source) and another will be the backup folder(destination). As new files will not be created in the backup folder, you do not have to sync the backup folder back to the source folder. If you do need to Sync both ways, just run the command twice, switching the source and destination folders the second time. This will be covered further in this article.

Play with XCOPY: 

The best place to start is to open up a command prompt by clicking on “Start”, selecting “Run”, and typing in “cmd” followed by enter. If you are using Vista, you can type “cmd” directly into the search box followed by enter. Either way, you should end up with a command prompt.

type “xcopy /?” followed by enter

This will show you all of the switches you can play around with. I will be using the /D  and /E switches only in this article. You can feel free to play with the others, though I have not needed them myself. Just take caution, this is where you can stuff up your data if you have not backed up.

The /D switch copies all the files from your source to your destination, unless a file at your destination is newer than the source. If there is a newer file at the destination, that file will be skipped and the next file will be checked. The copying of a file will only take place if the destination file does not yet exist or is older than the source.

The /E switch tells xcopy to include folders and subfolders. If you do not include this, only the files in the root of the folder will be copied. Worth noting is /S which will copy all folders across apart from empty folders. /S can be used instead of /E

There will NOT be any prompts asking you if you want to overwrite files using only the /D switch. Xcopy will overwrite the file in the destination if the source file is newer. There is no easy way to recover the file in XP or Vista. If you are a Vista user, you may get lucky by using the “Previous Version” functions in folders properties.

Sync with XCOPY:

The command “xcopy folder1 folder2 /D /E” will copy all the folders and files from folder1 to folder2. If a file exists in folder 2 that is newer or the same as a file in folder 1, the file will not be overwritten.

So to do it both ways, you can do as above and then the command “xcopy folder2 folder1 /D /E”. This will copy any folders and files that are new or don’t exist in folder1 across to folder1.

Both folders will now be the same.

Setting up a batch file:

You can place batch files anywhere on your computer, but for once I will recommend putting it in the root of your C: drive. If you want to create multiple files, create a folder called “sync” or “batch” to keep it tidy.

Open up Notepad, it’s in you accessories folder in the start menu.

You don’t need to make the batch file very complicated. If you have multiple syncs, you can put them all in the once batch file.

Start small with some test folders to be safe. Please don’t start off syncing your photos or music on your first run.

Put in the following commands, on separate lines, replacing folder 1 & 2 for your own folder and path names.

xcopy C:\folder1 C:\folder2 /D /E
xcopy C:\folder2 C:\folder1 /D /E

Save your file as sync.bat. You will need ensure you don’t save it as a txt file by selecting all files in the filetype dropdown.

You can test this out now, by double clicking on the batch file. You should then be able to prove it has worked by both folders containing the same files.

Test it some more by putting a text file in folder and then syncing. Check that the file is copied across to both. Try updating both text files and then syncing your folders. The most recently updated text file should be able to be found on both, with the older of the two being lost forever.

Scheduling your batch file:

It is nice to think that we will backup our data regularly on our own accord, but if you are like the other 4 billion or so computer users in this world, you would find it best to schedule it so you don’t need to check up on it again.

This is slightly different between XP and Vista, but the theory is the same so I will run through how to do this in XP. Vista calls their scheduler “Task Scheduler”, where as XP calls its scheduler “Scheduled Tasks”. Both can be found by clicking “Start” -> “Accessories” -> “System Tools”.

Click “Add Scheduled Task”
Click “Next”
Click “Browse” and navigate to your batch file
Select how frequently you would like it to happen. If your computer is on all the time, 3am is ideal. If you don’t have your computer on much, make it happen as your computer starts. This is completely up to you.
Follow the date prompts and that is it.

You are still able to launch the file manually if you require it to happen instantly, but otherwise, your folders will always be synced at the scheduled time.

Please check out part two of this article when it is available (Monday), which covers SyncToy so you can compare the two methods and figure out which you would prefer to use. I hadn’t played with xcopy much before writing this article, and I am thinking I may well end up using it over SyncToy. I feel like there is more control this way.

I hope you have enjoyed this article and found it useful. Please stick around and check out some other articles at Inspect My Gadget.

Once you remove a partnership, your device will not lose all its data. This will happen when you set up a new partnership later on, and then you will be asked if you would like to keep the data from your device, or your computer intact.

To remove a partnership, ensure that your device is no longer connected to your computer.

In WMDC:

Click “Mobile Device Settings”

Click “End a Partnership”

You will be given a warning that you are doing something bad and then you will be asked if you want to delete the Synchronisation folder. I don’t delete it as I will use the same folder next time I try to create a partnership.

This is not something that has to be done very often, but there are some circumstances where it is required.

Once you remove a partnership, your device will not lose all its data. This will happen when you set up a new partnership later on, and then you will be asked if you would like to keep the data from your device, or your computer intact.

To remove a partnership, ensure that your device is no longer connected to your computer.

In ActiveSync:

Click “File”

Click “Delete Mobile Device”

You will be given a warning that you are doing something bad and then you will be asked if you want to delete the Synchronisation folder. I don’t delete it as I will use the same folder next time I try to create a partnership.

This is not something that has to be done very often, but there are some circumstances where it is required.

This article will show you how to synchronise your “My Documents” folder from your Windows XP computer to your “Documents” folder in Windows Vista. Synchronising your “My Documents” is particularly useful if you have a desktop and a laptop. You can take your documents from your desktop with you on the road with your laptop. This is also suitable if you have multiple computers in your home and would like the documents to be the same on all machines, so you are not fighting with your family over which computer you need to use as all the computers will have your documents.

There are many ways in which you can synchronise two folders between machines in Windows XP and Vista. You could use the Microsoft SyncToy or other file browsers with sync functionality. They will all do the job but I have not yet found a setup that works as well as offline files. The advantage of using offline files is that it is automatic. The documents will show up instantly on both machines (as long as there is a network connection) even though the syncing only occurs when scheduled and as the machines are booted up and shut down. With Vistas new sync center, there is a push towards using offline files, and while this in not what it was designed for, it works very well.

The synchronisation works both ways so you can update documents on any of the machines hooked up to this system and they will all show the same documents, as they are all pointing to the same location. The same goes that if you delete a document from one machine, the document will be removed from the others.

It is recommended that you will have the server/desktop machine on all the time. This does drain minimal power but in my case, my computer completes set tasks overnight (such as virus scanning) so I would not benefit from turning it off. There are also varied views as to if it is better to leave a computer on all the time to protect it from the shock of turning on and off. I have always left my computers on unless there is a storm brewing. Using offline files will still work if you do turn your machines off overnight. The syncing will take place automatically when you have them both on.

This article contains a whole lot of other tips you can use along the way such as mapping network drives and scheduling sync center. This procedure is also a great way to automatically backup your documents in the case that one of your computers fails in some way. You can fix the machine at fault and then copy the files back to it.

There are multiple sections to this article to get the final result, not all steps are necessary, but you will get better results if you follow them all. 

If you would like to connect two Windows XP computers “My Documents” folders, please check out my article “Windows XP: Synchronise two computers “My Documents” using offline files.”

(Update: 29/8/2007) I had to reinstall Vista, so I had a look at what I had to back up. Using this method, as all the data was already on the XP machine, all I had to backup was my email. This made the process extremely quick and easy. Once Vista was reinstalled, a restore of email and reconnecting the folders as explained below was all that was required. 3 months on, I stand by this method as being by far the best.

Defining our folders:

Windows XP and Windows Vistas user folders have a different structure, though there are many similarities. The table below shows which folders we will be able to view through Vista. The Vista Unrelated folders don’t have a corresponding Windows XP folder so we will not touch them in this article.

Where as Windows XP has all the “My” folders within “My Documents” folder, and Vista stores each folder individually under the users name (ie C:\users\Chris), we are still able to link each XP folder to a corresponding Vista folder.

If you store your music or movies in another folder on your XP machine, that is fine, we just need to ensure that we share these folders so they can be viewed from the Vista machine.

When you delete files, they still go into the recycle bin and can be restored unlike other methods which can bypass the recycle bin.

An ideal solution?:

After setting this up, it is working really well for me and is clearly the best solution for my needs. While the pros greatly out weigh the cons, it is important that I share all the negative effects as you are getting into some pretty complicated stuff.

With the folders in your Vista start menu, you may see your computer name. The picture on the right shows this. Working with security settings, you may be able to rename them to friendly names later. I have not been successful in changing them, and I have looked through the registry. Saying that, it is worth knowing that they aren’t local if you make similar changes in future.

Thumbnails of pictures and videos can take a while to generate if you have a lot of files as they are being generated over the network. Once the thumbnails are created everything runs smoothly as a local copy is saved.

If you use offline files, you are using an equal amount of storage space on both machines. This would be the same with other sync methods, you have the advantage that your data is backed up and available to you instantly.

You need to be very patient while working through this article as you are transferring lots of data around. If you press cancel, or stop the computer from making the changes it needs to make, it can be frustrating to get things going again as they were originally. With Vistas “restore previous versions”, it can be recovered or we can set our folders back to their default location in the folder options.

If you change your username after this is set up, Vista will get in a bit of a tangle and will show you blank shortcuts which don’t work. Ensure you create new users instead of changing older users after this stage. If you have changed your username and seen the blank shortcuts, change your username back and Vista will recover.

In a desktop/desktop situation, we will generally be working online which is quite a bit slower than storing data to the local hard drive. If you have a decent network, you should be fine. As our network is quicker than the internet connection, you will not have any speed loss. If you are loading data form an external hard drive and copying to a network location, you are limited to the speed of the network. The way around this is to plug the hard drive into the Host computer.

That’s about it. Move ahead with caution if you have not been too scared. It does work, and works well.

What you need:

• Computer running windows XP
• Computer running Windows Vista
• A network connection between them, configured for file sharing.

Sharing your “My Documents Folder” on the Windows XP computer

By default, your “My Documents” folder is located on your C drive. The path to this is “C:\Documents and Settings\”Username”\My Documents”. In order for other machines to see this drive we must first share it so that the folder is available to the other computers to see it.

We are removing much of the security from your documents. If security is an issue for you, please investigate further. Please ensure that you have backups of all your data before proceeding. I see this as low risk of something failing, even lesser of documents disappearing but you can never be too careful.

Please do the following on the host machine.

Click “Start”

Right Click “My Documents” and select “Properties”

Select the “Sharing” tab

Tick “Share this folder on the network”

Enter a Share name – Both “My Documents” or “Documents” are fine.

Tick “Allow network users to change my files”

Click OK

The “My Documents” folder should now have a hand under it to indicate that it is shared. If you go into “My Network Places”, you should see the “My Documents” folder. It will show up as “My Documents on Computerdescription(Computername)”. Please take note of your computer name.

If you have a music, pictures or movies folder located in another location on your computer, share these the same way. You don’t need to worry about the “My Pictures” folder as it is part of the “My Documents” folder you have already shared.

This concludes the steps on your Windows XP computer.

Ensure we have enough space in the Offline Files cache:

(update: 29/8/2007) This next step is completely optional if you will always have access to your XP computer via the network. If you have a laptop which you move around with you, you will want to ensure you have offline files configured.

We need to have as much free space for our offline files cache as we have data in our “My Documents” as well as music and the like. This should be OK as we can expect our Vista hard drive to be larger than the one on our XP computer.

Go to your “Control Panel” in Vista and open up the offline files icon.

Find out how much data you want to store as offline files and then give yourself plenty of headroom over this.

As you can see, I am using 121GB for my offline files which includes my documents, pictures and music. There is still plenty of free space.

Select change limits and make sure you have enough space for your offline files.

If you don’t, sync center will report errors and say your cache is full. You can then come in here and increase the size without needing to set everything up again. Sync center will pick up where it left off.

Finding your documents in Vista:

Open up “Computer” and select “Network”

Select your XP computer

You should see the folders you have previously shared in XP.

Right click on the shared folders and select “Properties”. 

We are now going to set the files to be available offline. This does two things, gives us a backup of our files from our XP machine, and allows us to access files if the XP machine is not on the network or unavailable.

(update: 29/8/2007) This next step is completely optional if you will always have access to your XP computer via the network. If you have a laptop which you move around with you, you will want to ensure you have offline files configured.

While it is best to do this for your documents, it is up to you if you want to do the same for videos and music. I do it for my music, purely for a backup. As we are going to be running off the network drive most of the time, having offline files turned on or off will not restrict our access to these files whilst both machines are on the network.

I have not done my video files as there is around 80GB of them, meaning I would use up an extra 80GB of the Vista hard drive, as well as still having it in the original location on the XP machine.

Tick “Always available offline”.

Select “Sync Now”

Depending on how large the folder is, this can take quite some time. It’s time for a coffee. Syncing is very fast after the initial sync, generally only a couple of minutes, where the initial sync can take over an hour.

Repeat this step for all the folders you have shared and want to sync this way.

Redirecting Vistas folders to the shared folders:

Once all the folders you want to be available offline are synced, we need to tell Vista to get it’s documents from the XP computer.

Go into “Computer”

Right click on “Documents” and select “Properties”

In the location tab, we can see that the default path is “C:\Users\Chris\Documents”

Click “Move”

Navigate through Network to your XP computer and select the Documents share you created at the start.

Click “Select Folder”

Your computer will now ask you if you want to move your current Vista “Documents” to XPs “My Documents”. This means that the documents from Vista will be transferred into the central XP “My Documents” folder. I press “Yes” here but if you have only rubbish you don’t want, or it is a fresh install of Vista, press “No”. Pressing “Yes” is a much safer bet, even if you have to delete files from in your “Documents” later.

If you have lots of data on your Vista machine, this can take a while as you are transferring files over your network.

Repeat the steps above for each of your folders you want to sync up.

Right click on “Pictures” and select “Properties”. Press “Move” and navigate through the network to your “My Pictures” folder inside “My Documents”.

Do this until you have all the corresponding folders pointed to the network shares. Even if you didn’t make your movies available offline, still do this step.

You should now be able to click on the folders in your “Start Menu” and see that the contents of them are the same as on your XP machine.

We are almost there.

Sync Center:

Open up “Sync Center” from your “Control Panel”.

You should see an “Offline files” section.

If you double click on it, you get a rundown of what you have set to be available offline.

Select “Schedule” and set yourself up a few rules for when to sync.

I sync each day at 3AM as I am normally in bed then and my machines are left on. You can set it to sync as you login or logout your computer. You don’t even need to do it daily. Set this to best fit your needs.

And that’s it. You now have all of your data from your XP computer accessible from your Vista computer.

To sync your favorites, please read my article “How-to: Synchronise your IE favorites between Windows XP and Vista” as it is slightly different.

I hope you have enjoyed this article and found it useful. Please check out some of my other articles at Inspect My Gadget.