SyncToy for Windows XP

Article
08/09/2005

If you're like me, you probably have thousands of digital photos and documents that you want to backup or copy to external media. In my case, I copy everything to an external 160GB XIMETA NetDisk for safe keeping. I have used the free version of Allway Sync in the past, and I've had very good results. However, we recently released a handy tool for Windows XP called SyncToy, and based on my few days of experience, it appears to do everything I need. Here are a few of its features:

Provides easy and flexible copying, moving, and synchronization of files in different directories
Manages multiple sets of directories at the same time
Can combine files from two folders in one case, and mimic renames and deletes in another
Keeps track of renames to files and will make sure those changes get carried over to the synchronized folder

Configuring SyncToy is as easy as setting up one or more folder pairs and corresponding actions for each pair. For example, I might setup one pair to synchronize changes between two folders (which works both ways) and setup another pair to simply echo changes from one folder to another (echo is the action I use for backup purposes). If you want to get more specific, there are additional options that can be configured.

If you'd like to know what operations SyncToy would perform on your folder pairs, you can run the convenient preview feature. The preview feature analyzes the folders, then tells you what it would do if it ran, but—most importantly—it doesn't actually make any of the changes. This is a great way to get comfortable with the tool before letting it loose on your precious files. And if you want to automatically process your folder pairs, there's even a topic in the help file (lookup Schedule in the index) that explains how to schedule SyncToy to run on a periodic basis.

Download SyncToy v1 Beta for Windows XP or to learn more, grab the whitepaper titled: Synchronizing Images and Files in Windows XP Using Microsoft SyncToy .

Comments

Anonymous
August 09, 2005
its nice but it should support the ability to specify hidden network shares because the browse for folder doesnt show them
Anonymous
August 09, 2005
I ran into the same issue, xml. To work around it, I created a new "Network Place" to "My Network Places." This allowed me to access the hidden folder from within SyncToy. Not ideal, but it works.
Anonymous
August 09, 2005
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Anonymous
August 10, 2005
If you have wanted to synchronise two folders between machines before but, didn't want to buy a solution...
Anonymous
August 20, 2005
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Anonymous
August 24, 2005
This is a GREAT tool. I'm so glad this was released. I've been looking for something exactly like this as I have both my tablet and my regular laptop and really wanted my documents sync'd!
Anonymous
August 24, 2005
I agree it´s a GREAT tool. I have used it many times over the past week and at a lot of different sites. But it also has it´s glitches, for example the program won´t run in the schedule mode if it´s runned as a different user than the one who is actualy logged on, but hey it´s free...
Anonymous
August 25, 2005
Yes, It's very handy, but it would be great if it could run in the background when I'm not logged in e.g. scheduled jobs.
Anonymous
August 29, 2005
A good tool, not great. I would like to see the features of Robocopy integrated into this GUI based tool. A CLI would also be nice for automating tasks with scripting.
Anonymous
September 01, 2005
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Anonymous
September 01, 2005
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Anonymous
September 06, 2005
How does one use Sync up short cuts? For example, I want to create a Sync folder on my C: drive called Sync Home. To this folder, I copy shortcuts of the actual folders I want to sync up with (that way I can easily remove these shortcuts when I am no longer working on particular projects). However, on my USB drive, I want SyncToy to figure out that a shortcut availabe on my PC may not be available at the destination, so I want it to actually go into that shortcut and copy all files, perhaps allowing me to configure the "depth" of shortcuts it should follow.
Anonymous
February 04, 2006
I thought this was a pretty cool util until I found that it doesn't delete empty subfolders. For example: I have Pics1, Pics2 & Pics3. I decide I want to move them under a folder called PICS so I end up with PICSPics1, PICSPics2 & PICSPics3. After a sync, the destination drive will have the PICSPicsX folders with all my files but the original PicsX folders will remain, albeit empty. Maybe I'm missing something but that's a big booboo.
Anonymous
February 04, 2006
Oh by the way, Nate, I've successfully scheduled SyncToy to run via XP's Scheduled Tasks while I'm not logged on. That seems to work fine. My only gripe is the actualy folder structure synchronization. Good luck.
Anonymous
February 13, 2006
Why dont you just use the latest version of Robocopy?? I've found it to be the lightest and quickest of all the sync and file tools available.
If you create a simple bat file with all the switches you can easily use it in a schedule.
Anonymous
February 14, 2006
I thought I could use SyncToy to ECHO the files in my Documents folder to the CD-RW drive folder (for backup purposes).

No dice.
Anonymous
February 28, 2006
Does anyone know if you can install synctoy on both machines that are to be kept in sync. That way I can run it from which ever machine I'm on.
I was concerned the SyncToyDirPairs.bin file it creates will get copied and overwrite the SyncToyDirPairs.bin on the other machine.
Anonymous
March 21, 2006
It is very cool but won't delete empty folders. I have two computers with lots of AVI files in many folders. When I delete all the AVIs in folder A and move them to folder B on one computer the SyncToy won't delete folder A on the other computer. I have tried invane and it just won't work. Major flaw!
Anonymous
March 24, 2006
Can't get this to even install since I have .Net framework 2.0 installed. It says it requires a lower version number.
Anonymous
March 27, 2006
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Anonymous
March 27, 2006
Hi. Thanks for the feedback on SyncToy.

Deleting empty directories - this was a bigger task than we had time for in v1.0. It's on the feature list for v2.0. For 1.0, we based our decision to not to the work to delete empty directories on how other sync'ing programs like RoboCopy behave.

SyncToy v1.x requires the .Net Framework 1.1. It works to have both versions of the Framework installed - when I tested it, I could install SyncToy as long as fx1.1 was installed, then I added fx2.0 for the other apps that require it.

Thanks for the suggestions. We're definitely listening to what users are saying, although we cannot promise that every request will make it into the next release.

Reyna
Anonymous
March 28, 2006
Hi, I've been trying for some time to get SyncToy to run as a scheduled task.

It works great when I'm logged in, but I share my computer with others, and I really want it to run for them too. Am I missing a trick here? HiggiML above says it works fine...but gives no details. Can anyone help?
Anonymous
April 04, 2006
I would like to know if I can use this to backup from multiple PCs on a network to one external USB 2.0 drive on one of the PCs??
Anonymous
April 06, 2006
I could now with version 1.2 access an external drive as my backup file. But I cannot get the scheduled run to work. Is there something special I need to do other than the instructions in Help??
Anonymous
April 26, 2006
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Anonymous
April 26, 2006
how to make it run silently?

or as a service so that it wirks even when you are not logged in? (e.g. screen saver comes on and pc goes into standby)
Anonymous
April 29, 2006
I also cannot get SyncToy to run as a scheduled task. I created a new user account "backup" that has a password so that it can run scheduled jobs. However, SyncToy never seems to actually run. The log says it is starting, but nothing is copied and the job finishes too quickly.
Anonymous
May 03, 2006
The download page for the .NET Framework 1.1 gives a 404 when it redirects to get the package. As others have noted, the 2.0 framework won't do it for this installer.

Why must Microsoft break its websites this way? :(
Anonymous
May 04, 2006
This program looked very promising but unfortunately turned out to be a damp squib when discovering that it does not delete empty folders. After having done a couple of days work, moving, creating and deleting files and folders etc. The destination ends up a complete mess of empty folders in amongst the "live" ones. This should have been a fundamental requirement not an afterthought.
Anonymous
May 11, 2006
I used it to back up large amounts of data from an NDAS device to another computer. During that week, people have rearranged their files. Now, when I compare the backup to the orginal files, it appears that Synctoy just kept making backups of the new or rearranged files, but NOT deleting them from the backup. This solution is completely useless.

I decided to run it at home so I can backup the My Documents folder. I also had the same person. We are both using Echo to copy the contents of the My Documents folder to an external HDD. Guess what? after a week or so of doing this, when I right click on My Documents and look to see the file size and the amount of files and directories, it is VERY different than the one of the backup HDD. If it was truely echoing data, they should be extactly the same.

As far as I can tell, this program is usless for backing up data. I will definitely recommend people not use it.
Anonymous
May 14, 2006
A problem I have just discivered is that SyncToy backs up new sub folders of directories you have chosen not to copy.

E.g. I had set up Synch Toy to copy stuff from My Documents to a second hard disk as a scheduled task. The second disk is an older one I have just installed and is only 14 Gb but useful for document backup. I set SynchToy to NOT copy the My Music sub folder since the files in here would have filled the second disk. This worked fine until I ripped a new CD there by creating a new sub folder under My Music. This new sub folder was copied over to the second disk even though the parent My Music was flagged as not to be copied.

I don't really want to tweak the settings of SynchToy every time I add some music. ANy body know a way round this?
Anonymous
May 18, 2006
UGH, how did the guy above manage to get it to run as a scheduled task without being logged in? ANYONE?????
Anonymous
May 23, 2006
My scheduled task of Sync Toy only runs when I am logged in. I have not tried to create a task that runs when I am not logged in.

Sorry for the confusion. :-$
Anonymous
May 24, 2006
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Anonymous
May 24, 2006
I'm happy with SyncToy but, as usual, there's something missing. The fact that it doesn't delete folders on the RHS is a serions shortcoming. How can it be called a SYNC? if it doesn't smart delete. I have never been able to understand why microsoft's "ActiveSync" (For PDA's) isn't expanded to allow for PC-PC as well as PC-PDA sync'ing. Now that would be REALLY handy.
Anonymous
May 25, 2006
PingBack from http://www.kickingdragon.com/2006/05/25/usb-drive-madness/
Anonymous
June 08, 2006
Would be nice if it was recompiled under the dotnet 2.0 environment. it only works with 1.1
Anonymous
June 09, 2006
Is possible change the SyncToyDirPairs to diferent path. I would like to keep this configuration in my network drive. I think the directory C:MyDocuments my users may clear this file ???
Thanks a lot.
Anonymous
July 03, 2006
before installing synctoy and nswering "yes"to installing framework, a version of framework is installed after which Synctoy again requires the installation of framework.
Fortunately there is Google to find the above answer to this problem here. MS knowledgebase did not help me. Anyway reading about more problems with synctoy I think it is not wise to use it.
Anonymous
July 17, 2006
PingBack from http://www.kickingdragon.com/2006/07/17/found-a-better-usb-syncing-tool/
Anonymous
July 24, 2006
The comment has been removed
Anonymous
July 27, 2006
I like it, its nice and pretty and seems easy to use.

I'd like to offer 2 items of feedback that I thought the tool lacked. I personally think these are quite major points, otherwise its great.

1. I cannot exclude files. eg, if i want to sync a pictures directory, I do not want it to copy thumbs.db for example.

2. I would greatly prefer it to exclude subdirectories of subdirectories I uncheck in the options dialog. The poster who complained about it syncing subdirs of My Music when new directories are added is right -it should be made to remember the root directory and exclude it and all its subdirs, unless a subdir is explicitly included. The GUI tree needs to be able to do this - uncheck a directory and all its subdirs get unchecked automatically.
Anonymous
July 27, 2006
I love it too...
The only issue I had using it was while Syncing my PC to a flashdrive. One of the files was bigger than the free space available on flashdrive and it would not replace the old file. The total space available (old file + free space) was more than the new file replacing it.
Please let me know if there is someway of fixing this issue.
Anonymous
August 02, 2006
Nice tool, but not so keen on the way it's been implemented. Firstly, it creates a useless (to the user) folder called SyncToyData in "My Documents". Bad style. It should have been a subdirectory of %APPDATA%Microsoft.

Secondly, it creates a hidden (unless, like me, you've set up Explorer to show hidden files) file called SyncToyDirectoryId.txt in each folder of a folder pair. Why on earth does it have to do that? That is intrusive, offensive behaviour and a total show-stopper for me! It was hoping to use it to synchronize my Favorites folder on my desktop at work with my laptop, then take the laptop home and syncronize my laptop's Favorites folder with my home desktop. I cannot do that, because the desktop and the laptop both have SyncToy installed and they both want to write different numbers in their copies of SyncToyDirectoryId.txt of my laptop's Favorites folder. What a pity, it could have been a very useful tool if only it had kept its own private data-keeping private.
Anonymous
August 21, 2006
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Anonymous
August 28, 2006
I have to side with Clint Kirk... But for different reasons. I want to have multiple users sync a networked folder to an external device. I noticied that failing to delete the file SynctoydirectoryID.txt causes the files not to replicate correctly. While I think the file in the directory is poor form, being able to select a different file name with a registry key may be a quick and dirty solution for those of us wanting to use it now. Also a warning when first using the product would be nice.

The other thing that needs improvement is permission for non-admin users. Sure you can raise the .Net trust for Synctoy but the installation should at least ask to do it for you.
Anonymous
August 30, 2006
Not being able to delete directories kills it for me. Who the heck wants a million empty directories lying around anways? And can you truly call it synchronization if it doesn't?

Spend the $20.00 and buy the Allwaysync Pro. Its worth it in my opinion.

http://allwaysync.com/
Anonymous
September 30, 2006
I have SyncToy set up to synchronize from my laptop to desktop with the laptop as the left folder. After every synchronize my laptop is littered with 200k syntoy files - what is going on?

Unless this is a setting that needs to be switched off it totally ruins SyncToy.
Anonymous
October 11, 2006
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Anonymous
October 17, 2006
To people reading this page.. If you are still having difficulty running SyncToy when not logged in, the fix is fairly simple. You are required to have a password on the user account from which Synctoy acquires its permissions. Without a password, the Account must be logged in. With a password, make sure the 'Run Only when logged in is checked, click Apply, and enter your password. That should do it. oldfogey
Anonymous
October 17, 2006
I have noticed that SyncToy keeps overwriting some of the files I have not modified every time I run the tool. Have you experienced that? I have looked everywhere, but I have not found a solution. It is a problem when one of those files is very large. I am using version 1.2.0.75.
Anonymous
October 19, 2006
Another potential problem with SyncToy is that if a file is changed on both the LHS and the RHS between syncs, it sems to just overwrite with the most recently modified rather than alerting you to the fact that it has changed on both sides and that you need to do something mannually to merge the file. Another really useful faeture would be to have the option to change the direction of an overwrite on a manual basis per file. Reyna's response (Monday, March 27, 2006 6:24 PM)to HiggiML (Saturday, February 04, 2006 7:25 PM) and MikeLaughlin (Wednesday, March 22, 2006 1:34 AM)comments was interesting, any update on that? If these three things were able to be written itno wynctoy - it would be very useful. Would people recommend Allway Sync as the best GUI syncer that won't make an overwrite where changes have been made on both sides without warning you?
Anonymous
October 30, 2006
!SOLVE! the problem of userinteractive mode: Watch at codeproject.com, a user has developed a console wrapper for the synctoy.dll. Thus, you don't have to start the frontend for the sync-prozess and thus, you won't get the error anymore. (search for synctoy) Need to say, that you have to compile it, it's just sourcecode...
Anonymous
October 30, 2006
MCE file back-up/synchronisation: SyncToy - does not run properly on MCE PC (unable to determine if other instances of SyncToy are running) so have it running on an XP PC instead which has a schedule to regularly wake from sleep state - if it's asleep (normally hibernation) and then wake up the MCE PC from its sleep state (normally hibernation), wait 40 seconds and then synchronise (echo) the data files (Music, Pictures and video) - ignoring the Temp file/dir in Record TV. The XP PC only has one account with no password but XP by default can not add a scheduled task running under a local account without a password. Also, XP Sync toy does not appear to run properly under another account (with a password) that is not logged on! So need to disable security policy: 'Limit local account use of blank passwords to console logon only' - now you can add a scheduled task under the local account without a password!
Anonymous
October 31, 2006
With over 33,000 total views, my August 9, 2005 announcement about the release of SyncToy is one of my
Anonymous
November 02, 2006
SyncToy v1.4 shipped today and you can download the new bits at the link below: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=e0fc1154-c975-4814-9649-cce41af06eb7&displaylang=en In addition to some minor bug fixes, we focused on the following tasks for this release: · Vista Compatibility · .NET Framework 2.0 Compatibility
Anonymous
November 04, 2006
MCE2005: Having upgraded to 1.4 fixes the 'unable to determine if other instances of SyncToy are running' error! However - after completing a successful scheduled task run SyncToy crashes! Have sent M$ the crash dump. SyncToy does run OK if ran manually and will close OK without crashing - it is only when run as a scheduled task will SyncToy crash upon closing after a successful run!
Anonymous
November 06, 2006
That's odd. I did not encounter the problem with scheduled task as you mentioned.
Anonymous
November 15, 2006
SyncToy opens an annoying Explorer window on every startup and won't uninstall. It has even messed up System Restore so that there seems to be no way to get rid of it.
Anonymous
November 16, 2006
I have been using SyncToy to backup my hard drive with pretty good success. But today I decided I wanted to exclude one large directory from the backup. The GUI is there for excluding subdirectories, but it seems to completely ignore it. I unchecked the directory that I was interested in excluding from the backup, but SyncToy continued to include that subdir in the synchronization. Why?
Anonymous
November 20, 2006
The comment has been removed
Anonymous
November 25, 2006
In echo mode it doesn't delete files in the right directory which are deleted in the left one.
Anonymous
December 02, 2006
Note that excluding a subfolder only excludes files within the subfolder. To exclude nested subfolders you still have to untick them yourself. You can right-click on a subfolder to have SyncToy do this for you.
Anonymous
December 03, 2006
The comment has been removed
Anonymous
December 06, 2006
The comment has been removed
Anonymous
December 07, 2006
Synctoy 1.4 would be great if the exclude folders would work. I try to back up my My Documents folder, without the 2 folders My Music and My Pictures (as well as their sub-folders). And every time, those 2 folders and their subfolders are copied...
Anonymous
December 09, 2006
The comment has been removed
Anonymous
December 10, 2006
I second most of the remarks here. The tool is a good one for casual users that want to copy photos etc to multiple locations but has serious limitations for advanced users. In the server world, synchronization means just that. After a sync the target directory is identical to the source regardless of what was moved/added/deleted or when. This tool will not delete directories and will not create empty directories as well as a few other limitations. It's a FILE based copy utility rather than a DIRECTORY based sync tool. **Also, for any advanced user the need to save the setup (directory pair and configs) is critical to ensure that the PC admin or user never looses all of the work of setting up dozens of directory pairs. Other sync utitilies IE All ways allows you to save the profile and then use it anywhere, reinstall, rebuild the PC, whatever and instantly recover the synch configs. SyncToy????? So when I rebuild my PC I loose all the synch configs and start over? Sync'Toy' is the correct name. Not bashing the product. Great for casual users as I said, but a toy at best
Anonymous
December 11, 2006
SyncToy 1.4 does have some serious problems. I tried to sync two directories, and it suggested deleting about 3,000 files from the local side, even though exactly the same files were on the remote one, in exactly the same directories, with exactly the same date and time stamps and sizes. I have no clue why... Then, when I run the whole thing again, it copies them back over! Strange thing is, though, when I choose to echo rather than synchronize, it doesn't complain at all... Weird.
Anonymous
December 13, 2006
I have a problem using synctoy on several machines to keep a series of copies of my data. The tool keeps ignoring lots of files and folders when they DO need to be copied. If i run it on an individual folder it works fine. If I try a whole group of folders and subfolders it seems to ignore stuff at random. Any ideas? Chris
Anonymous
December 13, 2006
Ok, I think I may have found a fix. I have deleted all the SyncToyDirectoryId.txt files and rerun the sync job and that appears to be working properly. My guess is that the SyncToyDirectoryId.txt files somehow because I'm using synctoy on several machines. It is just a guess though! Seems a messy way to do it, maybe it's an attempt to make it run faster but I'd prefer it to sct as if it were the first time every time, it seems to work then! Chris
Anonymous
December 14, 2006
I have the problem with autorun; I also have the problems mentioned with exclusions and matching multiple devices. There is no option to ignore previous information and simply do a full check on the files. This program is not a proper "utility"; it's more like a throwaway experiment someone did as a training exercise. If they're not going to support it properly, at least post the source somewhere and let people tweak it themselves.
Anonymous
December 15, 2006
PingBack from http://mkweb.mk.psu.edu/blogs/dgribble/2006/12/15/michael-swansons-blog-synctoy-for-windows-xp/
Anonymous
December 18, 2006
i tried to echo to my usb hard disk. i was expecting it to delete files on it that did not exist in the specified folders on the "left" its tedious to go through and manually delete files on 2 drives.
Anonymous
December 19, 2006
I use Synctoy to quickly sync files from home, laptop, work PCs using USB stick. I merely sync entire My Documents folder. Trouble is that Synctoy files are stored in My Documents folder, which causes errors. Sometimes Synctoy ends up looking for folder pairs from another PC. Should be a way to direct where Synctoy stores these operating files, i.e. not in My Documents.
Anonymous
December 21, 2006
Does anyone know where the synctoy settings are kept such that you could copy the preconfigured pairs from one machine to another?
Anonymous
December 30, 2006
PingBack from http://www.shahine.com/omar/AmazonS3Programs.aspx
Anonymous
January 01, 2007
In Echo mode, it doesn't work with folders (neither creating new nor deleting old).
Anonymous
January 03, 2007
In Echo mode the files on the left are not deleted on the right. It only works with updating or new files. Overwrites and new files work fine though.
Anonymous
January 04, 2007
I use it for Archive (using Contribute which means I can delete older versions of files on my live disc knowing they'll be on the archive copy) and Sync laptop to desktop. Still room for improvement (eg when a folder+subfolders are marked for exclusion, excluding new subfolders; putting deleted "old versions" somewhere specific, long path names still cause errors, Update on File Change (with Network Drive attach detected)) but generally very good for a free tool, and avoids all the problems of Briefcase.
Anonymous
January 06, 2007
This tool seems to be intended for keeping two folders in sync in a situation where user changes may happen in both folders. Such a tool must ALWAYS warn the user if a file have changed in both folders since last sync, since the tool have no way of knowing which (if not both) version contains changes to be kept. SyncToy fails at this. Until this is corrected, the tool is more Toy than Sync.
Anonymous
January 20, 2007
This is for anyone that is still having problems with v1.2. As noted above, for v1.2, the configuration files/pairs are stored in “My DocumentsSyncToyData”, so you can copy these back to a new installation. Also thanks to Chris Martin at http://usenet.p2preactor.com/index-t-1533203.html for coming up with a solution for the dreaded “SyncToy is unable to determine if other instances of SyncToy are running” problem. It turns out the perfc009.dat was missing from my “c:windowssystem32” directory. I just copied the file from an old XP installation,and just to be sure, I copied any file named "perf*.*". Now SyncToy starts up without the error message. BTW, when I was getting the error message, the Performance/System Monitor wouldn't work either, but now it's running. I'm able to run SyncToy in the Task Scheduler whether I’m logged on or not, I’m using XP Pro with multiple accounts, just followed the directions, made sure the “Run As” was correctly filled in, and the password entered, and the “Run only if logged on” was unchecked. Everything works within acceptable parameters, not perfect, but acceptable for a free program.
Anonymous
January 28, 2007
I love this tool. I think the design team made the right decisions in keeping it simple. The target audience is well served by this tool. I'm sure they'll fix whatever bugs exist in the 2.0 version. My only feature request is the ability to filter out all subfolders recursively, if you deselect a folder.
Anonymous
February 01, 2007
Hello, Good simple tool, however it lacks an important feature (either that or I can't find it), which is excluding files during a backup. I'm trying to use SyncToy in conjunction with an autorun.inf on my USB key to 'echo' the contents of my FireFox profile on my HD to the profile folder of PortableFirefox on my USB key when I plug the thing in. The problem is if FireFox is running already, it creates a file called parent.lock which you cannot copy because it's in use. Is there a way to tell SyncToy to skip that file? Thanks.
Anonymous
February 10, 2007
Hi, I have a fairly unsual setup with a NAS that has my "My Documents" folder on it, and each PC on the network has a login for me with the My Documents folder pointing to the NAS location. That way when I log onto whatever PC, my My Documents is always available. I am finding the The huge gotcha with SyncToy is the storage of the logfile and pair informaiton in the My Documents folder, which is on the NAS (although the .exe installed into my local settings folder, which is local to each PC. Bizarre location if you ask me!). But having the pairs in the My Docs location means that when I run SyncToy on any PC, it can't have local pairs just for that PC unless I do a complicated set of turning ons and turning off pairs before I run it each time. SyncToy needs to store its settings and logs files somewhere more approriate, like the local settings folder! Or even let it be a user configurable option. I also dislike intensely the way if files are changed in both locations it just silently deletes the older one. Hardly a sync tool at that point, is it?? Anyone else wrestling with similar issues? Thanks.
Anonymous
February 20, 2007
I do like this program very much for its simplicity. However it keeps create a folder names _SYNCAPP every time a new sync job is started. Not sure if this has anything to do with the previously uninstalled Allways Sync.
Anonymous
February 23, 2007
Sorry guys. I just discoved that Allways Sync created these hidden folders originally. Just have to manually delete them all. Thanks.
Anonymous
February 26, 2007
I love SyncToy and find it a very useful tool except for two things. Not deleting the empty directories can be a problem. The biggest problem though is that if I uncheck copy folder and all subfolders SyncToy will copy new subfolders that are created in a folder. I unchecked that SyncToy should copy temp internet folders but since new ones are created all the time it will start to back up the new ones. The biggest problem with this is that SyncToy has a major problem with backing up file and folder paths that are too long. The tem internet folder seems too often create files in this category. If the name is too long SyncToy will fail. I run the backup automatically and SyncToy does not inform you of the failure in auto mode. Do you know if these problems will be fixed in version 2 and about when version 2 will come out?
Anonymous
February 26, 2007
Awesome tool - I've used Unison for this sort of thing before, but I find the SyncToy interface much more intuitive and usable for the simple tasks I'm using it for. Thanks to the SyncToy dev team! My only big feature wish is that it could sync over a network, using FTP, SFTP, WebDAV etc, so that I could use it to automatically sync my local copy of a website with my online copy, and send backups of my files to my webhost. However, it's still great without this feature. More worrying are the reports I've seen above of silently overwriting older files - this probably should be fixed at some point. Until it is, I guess I just need to keep that in mind, and sync often.
Anonymous
February 27, 2007
I like the concept of SyncToy but I had an issue that I now can't seem to duplicate... I installed v1.4 and rather than use the task scheduler I decided to create a shortcut in my userprofile's startup group so that it ran when only I logged on. The short cut called synctoy.exe (fully qualified directory with correctly syntacted quotes) and the -R option. ST crashed every time and deleted my folder pair data after each crash. I decided to try the task scheduler and it worked! No crash and no deleted folder paris. That's great but now I can't recreate the crash. I guess that's good but:

Why did it crash in the first place
Why does it delete folder pair data after a crash. Log files only show successful syncs and I didn't check to see if the BIN files were deleted. Just curious...

Anonymous
March 05, 2007
This tool was the solution to two needs for me.

I needed a way to copy backup files (.bkf) created by NTBackup from where they are stored to a removable USB drive for off-site storage. The backup job is scripted. Each file has a unique name based on date/time, and the oldest files are periodically deleted. SyncToy in echo mode is a great solution for making the removable drive a mirror of the server's backup folder. P.S: In this instance I'm running SyncToy 1.4 on Server 2003!
Workstation users were storing mission critical data locally on their PCs. Created each their own location on a network share, worked with each user to determine the critical data stored locally, and created folder pairs running in echo mode. Network share is backed up nightly. Users run SyncToy before shutting down each night. Observation: SyncToy is a "profile specific" application. When configured as a scheduled task, the account it runs under must have a profile on the machine and it must be configured with the folder pairs. I have a special account (password never expires) for running scheduled tasks. I cannot configure SyncToy folder pairs while logged on as Administrator and then run SyncToy as a scheduled task under the special account and expect it to sync the folder pairs that are stored in the Administrator's profile.

Anonymous
March 06, 2007
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Anonymous
March 10, 2007
Has anyone managed to completely uninstall SyncToy? I tried upgrading to the latest version but keep getting a message that Windows is unable to uninstall the older version of SyncToy in WinXP. Also, only one Administrator is able to access and use the program when it was first installed. It would be good if other users could get to use the utility too. Please reply if you know how to completely clean this thing off a machine.
Anonymous
March 27, 2007
I am also wanting to know the trick on how to completely clean my windows XP machine of sync toy. If anyone has a clue, please let me know.
Anonymous
March 29, 2007
I don't know if anyone else has the same problem. Basically, I tried to sync a folder to another, with the source folder full while target folder empty. So Synctoy should copy all subfolders/files to the target one. But it consistently miss one file every time I try it. If I run "preview" a couple times then the left-out file will eventually pop out to let you copy it to the target folder. Any ideas what's going on?
Anonymous
March 29, 2007
Just realized that SyncToy has problem dealing with files that have long filenames/suffix. I truncated the suffix of that left-out file and now it seems to work.
Anonymous
April 01, 2007
I also have the problem of large files (>10Mb) getting overwritten/retransferred without apparent reason. I use 1.4.0.0 Cheers
Anonymous
April 04, 2007
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Anonymous
April 11, 2007
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Anonymous
April 15, 2007
Love it...just requires a few bug fixes and a few enhancements. Not sure if this has been mentioned in this thread already, but one thing I noticed in the Echo mode was when I rename a source folder that has sub-folders, and try to Sync, SyncToy hangs. CPU usage kicks to nearly 100% and nothing seems to happen. I recover by stopping synching. Once I renamed the folder in source back to original, there was no problem synching. I use 1.4.0.0.
Anonymous
May 06, 2007
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Anonymous
May 07, 2007
I forgot to ask at the bottom of the message above - does anyone have a solution to this problem?
Anonymous
May 18, 2007
I have been using SyncToy to setup automated backup for clients to their external backup drives. I've worked around the drive naming issue if using more than one external USB drive with the excellent freeware, USBDLM http://www.uwe-sieber.de/usbdlm_e.html. A simple .ini file on each drives assures its drive letter. Combined with SyncToy, I can have the entire Docs.Sets directory backed up to two separate drives, allowing for onsite/offsite backup with easy swapping. The ONLY thing breaking this completely free solution is SyncToy's difficulty with long filenames in the Temporary Internet Files directory. The primary culprit of these creations seems to be Kodak's Easy Share software. I wrote them, but I'm not holding my breath... I have setup an automated run of cleanmgr using the /sagerun:50 and /sageset:50 commands, but this doesn't always clear out the temp internet files directory. So I guess there are TWO problems.

SyncToy's inability to handle the long filenames and failing with little to no warning and
Cleanmgr failing to clear out the tempinternetfiles directory prior to the scheduled backups. Any ideas and reco's from the crowd here? owen

Anonymous
June 13, 2007
I'm trying to echo my PC files and folders to an external backup hard drive. Simply want whatever changes I make on my PC to be mirrored on the external drive. SyncToy got very confused when I renamed one of my subfolders. SyncToy reports that all the renames failed. So SyncToy is not so good if you re-organise your folders (something I do quite often)
Anonymous
June 20, 2007
I use a fairly rudimentary system of backing up my important documents by copying them to an external hard drive. For simplicity, I tend to copy whole folders across and replace what was there before, rather than try and pick...
Anonymous
June 26, 2007
Running v1.4 on XP Pro SP2 (local & remote). Do a run and it indicates it was successful. Then do a preview and MANY more files appear (I'm attempting to back up approx 20GB). I can manually check them one by one but what's the use? Even if I do, what files are being missed? This program is a disaster in waiting. I'm also seeing the bug with empty folders being left behind.
Anonymous
July 09, 2007
Sometimes, after I have run Synctoy, I try to open the recently sync'd EXCEL file and instead of opening it, Excel states that it is in an unrecognizable format. Anyone else have a problem/fix for this? Thanks
Anonymous
July 13, 2007
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Anonymous
July 17, 2007
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Anonymous
July 17, 2007
Cheers for the tip Rodney - that's exactly the same hanging problem I'm having with SyncToy 1.4.0.0. I have a networked backup machine, and until SyncToy arrived I had to delete the old backup and copy everything over again each time - very time consuming! Now I just echo everything. I find that the "loading saved information for C: ..." etc message only appears if the folder pair being echoed has lots of files - and it only fails on the 2nd time round, after the first run completed OK (i.e. there is no relevant .bin file to load on the 1st time round). Might it be something to do with the size of the .bin file? Certainly the SyncToy task is eating lots of RAM when it hangs, I've seen approx 400MB and 700MB. Deleting the .bin files has two disadvantages. Firstly, the speed of the sync run will be slower, as SyncToy will reconstruct the directory/file structure in full each time. Secondly, any files you've deleted since the last backup will not be deleted from the backup next time SyncToy is run, as (if I understand correctly) the .bin file contains information as to what files were and weren't there (and where they were) at the last run. I can live with the 'not deleting empty folders' bug as they don't take up space in the backup, but not deleting files from the backup that I have deleted in the original will be a problem, as the backup will slowly grow. I guess I'll just have to manually delete the whole backup every so often. Another solution to this problem is to reduce the number of files in the folder pair (go from one folder pair D: to multiple folder pairs D:Documents, D:Pictures, D:Software, D:Video etc) but it's inconvenient to say the least, as I have about 20 folders in my D (data) drive. (I wouldn't use D: and exclude only say D:Pictures as it falls over the bug where new folders created in the excluded D:Pictures are not excluded.) Also - some of the problems others have found may be due to files being "open" at the time - you can't expect SyncToy to deal with a file correctly if it is open for editing...
Anonymous
July 22, 2007
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Anonymous
July 24, 2007
I cannot uninstall my SyncToy using the ADD/REMOVE programs. Any ideas?
Anonymous
August 15, 2007
It is quite obvious that "echo"does not delete in the right folder how can this program be released? Free ok, but instead of reliable backups you get a mess. Beware of this program and try something else.
Anonymous
September 11, 2007
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Anonymous
September 29, 2007
Totally agree with some users : great tool (no mess for me, at least not yet??) BUT the "exclude * files" function SHOULD be implemented...
Anonymous
October 02, 2007
Seasr SyncToy Enthusiasts! Problem: we want to run SyncToy on multiple notebooks to synchronise the same network folder tree. Will this work, has somebody experience with this? What will happen when synchronising a file that was modified "left" and "right"? Kind regards - Tobias
Anonymous
October 19, 2007
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Anonymous
November 06, 2007
Does anybody knows how to run SyncToy automaticaly? It runs manualy fine but when I scheduled a task - no action.
Anonymous
November 07, 2007
Being able to filter by modification date is imperative. The preview mode should show the from on one side and the to on the other, with arrows or color codes to show which direction files are moving. You must be very viligent when syncin' between different computers. If the computer clock don't agree, you can and will wipe out new data with old data. (This happened to be around daylight savings time adjustment
Anonymous
December 17, 2007
Hi, I think SyncToy needs a LOT of work. Here are a few things I've noticed after installing it to back up my DFS (Distributed File System) to a local hard drive on my new Vista Ultimate machine with a 500GB drive that for the first time has allowed me to shadow my whole DFS to a single drive.

It won't read any file with a Tilde (~) in the file name!! I can't beleive nobody else has noticed this. Tilde's in file names are extremely common. MS Operatings systems, apps, and developer tools CD's generally all have files that include tilde's (Win 2K, 2K3, XP, MSVS 6,2003,2008, MapPoint 2002, and many more) and I store those CD's on my DFS (so that I never need to use install CD's, the computers point to the DFS is their install source and any add/remove features action reads from there, a common practice). This is a HUGE problem. The Windows OS's all accept tilde's in the file names--why on earth won't this program?
When I backup (echo) my DFS, it simply does not remove files that are no longer present! Do I have to have performed the delete operation from the installed location of SyncToy for it to recognize that they are now missing or what? (I don't just mean the folders remain, which is also a bad feature as has been widely pointed out here, but the files themselves remain.) I've run the echo several times and the files stubornly persist even though they have been deleted from the "Left" folder for weeks.
Long file names are accomodated by the Windows operating systems with no problems, yet several hundred files are not readable by SyncToy because the paths are too long. I can't rename the paths because they are intall CD's. That SyncToy won't accept the same long paths and Windows (98SE, ME, 2K, XP, 2K3, Vista) will is a tragic flaw.
Numerous "access denied" errors result (seemingly randomly) during synching (echo). I can browse them in Notepad or whatever, and the permissions are totally permissive (Everyone Full Control). What is causing this? Other backup tools encounter no such problems. Why are different files doing it each time? Mysterious... From what I've seen, the "Toy" part of the name is very apt, and no valuable data should ever be entrusted to the program. A better idea would be to simply perform a file copy to the shadow directory once in a while. I'm also going to look at the inherrant features of DFS for creating a shadow DFS, but I back in the Win2K days when I tried it last that was problematic. Anyway, SyncToy developers should throw a few files with tilde's in the name into their test file set, and use some very long file paths as well.

Anonymous
December 18, 2007
Has anyone run into the message "Exception during run: The even log file is full"? The synchronization stops at that point. Any idea where these file may be? I tried deleting the *.bin files in the SyncToy directory but that had no effect on the problem. Ideas? Best wishes, Mich M. E. Kabay, PhD, CISSP-ISSMP
CTO & Prog Dir, MSc in Info Assurance School of Graduate Studies
Assoc. Prof. & Prog Dir, BSc in Info Assurance School of Business & Management P: +1.802.479.7937 NORWICH UNIVERSITY Expect Challenge. Achieve Distinction.

E1: mekabay@gmail.com E2: mkabay@norwich.edu for University business W: http://www2.norwich.edu/mkabay/

Network World Fusion Security Management Newsletters http://www.networkworld.com/newsletters/sec/
Anonymous
December 20, 2007
The long filename issue with SyncToy is a deal breaker.
Anonymous
February 29, 2008
I echoed part of my data. Now I wanted to backup another pair of folders and simply run into an error all the time... Did anyone run into error "exception during run Value does not fall within the expected range" It just will not Echo / Synchronize ... I don't know really what is the problem. Please help.
Anonymous
March 18, 2008
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Anonymous
April 18, 2008
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Anonymous
April 29, 2008
I have followed the instructions to schedule a task to run synctoy automatically, but it doesn't work because my user doesn't have a password. I can't create a password for my user in my work environment. Is there a way to have the task scheduler run without a password? I see this message in the status bar of the scheduler: "The scheduled task did not run because no user account password was entered." Anybody know what I'm doing wrong? Or is synctoy just not a good solution for me?
Anonymous
May 27, 2008
Exclude, should be able to exclude folders. i.e. I am using this to sync a website (from the server side) and I want to exclude the_vti_* folders. However, it only excludes file types, but I want to sync these files in the other folders, just not these folders. Is a new version being created? If not, is the code available? iss_jon@hotmail.com
Anonymous
June 09, 2008
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Anonymous
June 18, 2008
I like sync toy. As long as this forum has been on, it seems the only question that has been too tough for anyone to answer is how to make scheduled tasks work. The -R thing is a bust...
Anonymous
October 14, 2008
SyncToy works perfect within the same PC but when I attempt going from one PC to another PC the Create Folder accepts the folders and goes all the way to the send window but when I send I get the following error message, for each item in the folder I was trying to send......Error: Unknown Error. Access is denied. (exception from HRESULT:0x80070005 (E_ACCESSDENIED)) Can anyone advise what do I do now ???
Anonymous
November 04, 2008
Jesse - I've just come across a lot of access denied errors when echoing to a remote file share. I had permissions to read all of the files and it had me stumped. Then I found that all of the problem files had the read only flag set - presumably when echoing a read only file the attributes are set before the file copy takes places, resulting in the denial of access.
Anonymous
December 02, 2008
I've upgraded this toy application several times, but bugs keep coming. Today I had a division by zero error !!! The software stalled and no bug report was created. I allways use echo mode, but when I use properties for the folder paisr I get different numbers of files and different sizes....
Anonymous
January 11, 2009
Hi I am using SyncToy 2.0 on Vista and configured with scheduler to run automatically. It is working very well. my issue is, each time it is opening a command prompt window (ofcourse it is automatically closing the same once the sync is done) which is causing disturbance when I am working with other applications. Is there any option to avoid this ? Thanks in advance
Anonymous
March 04, 2009
We were going to use SyncToy as a way of automating syncs between a development machine and live machine but the echo feature fails in its purpose to have an exact copy of the source on the destination (right hand folder). This is because for some reason it doesn't delete folders - surely this is the contribute option but the ECHO option is selected. Is this a bug? When will it be fixed?
Anonymous
May 05, 2009
Echo does not work. Sometimes it will catch the file additions on the left, but it NEVER catches the deletions from left to right.
Anonymous
May 06, 2009
I have a question about SyncToy and I have not got a response in the MS SyncToy forum. I have two files on seperate networked computers where I need to keep the file on one computer updated daily with the changes that occur in the file on the other computer. (Simple so far!) The problem is these two files MUST have different filenames. The files are accessed by different applications (databases), and it is not possible to have the "receiving" file have it's name changed. I would think this is possible, but I cannot find it in the SyncToy Help or anywhere online Please explain how this can be done. Thanks so much.
Anonymous
May 07, 2009
Is There any way to run synctoy automatically means if a file is added to source folder then that file automatically added in deestination folder.[using scheduler we can do this but with in timeframe].is there any way to run based upon changes[automatically]?
Anonymous
May 17, 2009
The comment has been removed
Anonymous
August 12, 2009
Hi, working with SyncToy 2.0 (2.0.100.0, Built 12.08.2008, run under Windows XP Home): apart from "path too long" messages you get when the destination path is too long, SyncToy SILENTLY ignores all files where the source path is already too long... a shame :-(
Anonymous
November 16, 2009
As an administrator I don't get alerts when synctoy fails to backup users files from their PCs to the sever. How do I get the alert, any help?
Anonymous
November 29, 2009
I used 2.0 under XP to synchronize between a usb connect harddisk and a network connect harddisk. When copying manually there is no problem, but when I synchronize big files, mostly jpg and mp3 files things went awfully wrong. On the copied picture you would see a 10-20% band of the picture and the rest would be gray. Same with copied mp3 files, after 10 seconds the song stops. In copying back and forth, this way my entire collection of 60GB of music was entirely ruined. Luckely I could recover from DVD back ups and the history of my account at the store. If the same had happened with my pictures I would have lost 12 years of memories. No more Synctoy for me
Anonymous
January 16, 2010
Hello Does anyone know where SyncToy saves settings of configuration? I would like to copy settings to another workstation. Thanks
Anonymous
May 08, 2010
I got SyncToy to work with my FTP server. First i downloaded a program called 'DirectNet Drive' from download.com. Using this program i allocated my FTP server a virtual drive (Z:). Then I could use SyncToy using the Z: drive as my 'right-hand' drive.

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