Sign up for the ITPro Today newsletter
Stay on top of the IT universe with commentary, news analysis, how-to's, and tips delivered to your inbox daily.
Free to Sync
There are many free tools available that can help you synchronize your desktops and laptops. Start your research here.
Caroline Marwitz
October 15, 2007
1 Min Read
There are many free tools available that can help you synchronize your desktops and laptops. Command-line devotees might want to try their hand at Unison, an open-source UNIX/Windows program with a respectable pedigree, or try a UNIX tool such as rsync, which requires a wrapper for Windows use. Windows Vista and Windows XP both have features that help users synchronize files, and Microsoft also has a popular free tool, SyncToy, which helps users sync files between folders and computers. Here's a short list of free tools to investigate.
Unison—Unison synchronizes files across UNIX and Windows platforms (www.cis.upenn.edu/~bcpierce/unison).
rsync—This open-source UNIX utility provides fast file transfers; it requires a wrapper and configuration for Windows use (samba.anu.edu.au/rsync).
Windows Vista Sync Center—Vista's Sync Center lets you synchronize files between PCs, laptops, and mobile devices (windowshelp.microsoft.com/Windows/en-US/Help/1074e034-1bcf-4dfb-93c3-46ec7df97d371033.mspx).
Windows XP Professional Offline Files—XP's offline-files feature helps you synchronize files over a network (www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/using/mobility/learnmore/offlinefiles.mspx).
Microsoft SyncToy 1.4—SyncToy helps you copy, move, rename, and delete files between folders and computers (www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=E0FC1154-C975-4814-9649-CCE41AF06EB7&displaylang=en).
Robocopy—This command-line tool is intended for copying folders (with an optional argument filter for use with filenames). It's available as a standard feature in Vista and as part of the Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Resource Kit (www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=9d467a69-57ff-4ae7-96ee-b18c4790cffd&displaylang=en).
About the Author
You May Also Like
.png?width=700&auto=webp&quality=80&disable=upscale)