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Synchronize Laptops & Servers

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by emcabee

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Our company has 2 engineers who have recently began toting laptops. Both engineers work in our office, in our customer's office, and off-site (work-aholics, but they say they love their work).

Both engineers work on the same projects at all locations, but NEVER on the same files at the same time.

They would like to be able to "synchronize" the files stored on their laptops with the files stored on our server AND our customer's server. For example, E1 works on some files at home tonight and tomorrow wants to place those files on our server in place of the old ones. Also, tonight E2 works on some ohter files and wants to update the files on the server AND get the new files that E1 worked on...

What I want is a package that will "look" at 2 folders across a network and replace any old files with newer ones of the same name in EITHER location.

Confusing enough yet?

I'm sure there are software packages that can do this, I just don't have time to hunt them down and test them right now.

6 replies

by ideafixer

Not to complex really. I am assuming it's documents and stuff. I know there is a "my briefcase" program that comes with windows. I have never used it but the purpose of the program is for synching laptops.

The easy way:

Create a folder on the network. Call it the engineer's name. When at work, have them store all their documents and stuff in this folder.

Create a folder on the laptop with the engineer's name or the folder they are working off of on the network.

When they leave, have them copy the network folder to their laptop. When they come into the office have them copy their laptop folder to the network.

As long as they are not working on the laptop and network simultaneously, when you copy the file before you switch from the laptop to the network, or the network to the laptop, all of the changes will be there.

You could also use a program called "PC Anywhere" I know it has a utility that will synch directories. I have used it and it's pretty straight forward. They also have free tech support in the first year of using PC Anywhere (At least when I was using it frequently in 200) and the program has all kinds of cool features for a work at home user.

Good Luck!

by acattr

windows 2000 workstations have this built in. Just select any server folder and right click it and select "make available offline". A wizard will walk you thru the configuration.

by emcabee

The folders for each engineer won't work, because BOTH use the same files. Simply copying the entire folder will lose some information. For example, E1 copies what is on his laptop to the server, then E2 copies what he has to the same folder. Whatever E2 copies will overwrite what E1 put there 5 minutes ago. Also, these files are not documents and the folder in question is about 700MB, which would require moving a massive amount of data unneccesarily. Sorry for the confusion. Will "briefcase" work with 2 laptops trying to get the same data?

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