Handy Tool

A coworker just pointed me to a recently released WinXP power toy. It's called SyncToy. It's nice because you can setup a folder pair (the source and destination folders) and choose the type of synchronization. There are five types of synchronization actions (copied from its own help file):

• Synchronize: New and updated files are copied both ways. Renames and deletes on either side are repeated on the other.
• Echo: New and updated files are copied left to right. Renames and deletes on the left are repeated on the right.
• Subscribe: Updated files on the right are copied to the left if the file name already exists on the left.
• Contribute: New and updated files are copied left to right. Renames on the left are repeated on the right. No deletions.
• Combine: New and updated files are copied both ways. Nothing happens to renamed and deleted files.

These allow me to program on my laptop or desktop and keep my files up to date. I also created a shortcut that synchronizes the folder pair that I'm working on the most

"C:\Program Files\Microsoft\SyncToy\SyncToy.exe" -R "SyncPairName"

This will pop open the progress window and it will close again when it's all done syncing. It's a pretty good tool. The only complaint that I have is that there isn't an option to exclude files. It's possible to say that I want only jpg and gif files but not possible to say I want everything but jpg files. Hopefully in the next version...