While I know a lot of people make bad noises about Microsoft, they do have some useful software.  I’m not talking about expensive packages such as Office etc, I’m talking about the handy programs they provide free.  One of the ones I use a lot is SyncToy, currently at version 2.1, and it’s not just me, Lifehacker recommends it as well.

So I use this program to sync my local files with either network or USB drives which it works well for.  Version 2.1 in particular has improved sync’ing USB drives by remembering drive letters.  It’s easy to set up ‘pairs’ for sync’ing via the GUI and to kick it off whenever you need to.  However this post is not all about SyncToy what I’ve recently it how to all this via the command line.  The following screen grab shows the options available (C:\Program Files\SyncToy 2.1>synctoy /?):

SyncToy command line options

So what I’ve done is set up a batch file that kicks off the sync I need:

“C:\Program Files\SyncToy 2.1\synctoycmd.exe” -r customer_files

And I can run it by double-clicking the batch file.  However where it could prove even more useful is if you included it in Windows start-up/shut-down routines where you could automatically sync files.  At the moment though I’ve created a batch that sync’s and shuts down my machine that I run at the end of the day.  It should be noted that you should set up the sync first via the GUI, but once you’re happy it’s working then you can run it via the command line.

“C:\Program Files\SyncToy 2.1\synctoycmd.exe” -r customer_files
shutdown -s

And if you’re looking for more info of how to sync automatically, you could always use Task Manager, check out MyDigitialLife for more info on this.