My wife has just got a new laptop running XP Home. My main machine runs XP Pro and has the Broadband modem on it and a cabled NIC to allow Internet connection sharing between my machine and my daughters desktop machine. To integrate the laptop into the system I fitted a wireless card in my machine and a PCMCIA wireless adapter in the laptop. I've bridged the two NICs in my machine and all three machines can now connect to the net and see all shared drives and printers on all machines. Exactly as I wanted them to.
The problem I have is that I want to synchronize the My Documents folder on the laptop with the hard drive on mine. I should be able to do it so that whenever the laptop logs onto the network the two folders synchronize so if any documents have been modified on either machine, they will both have the latest version. If I try to share the My Documents folder, I am told that it cannot be mapped.
I know it can be done because my network at work is set up in exactly this way (although all machines are running XP Pro). When I use Explorer to look at My Documents on my works laptop, they are shown as being a mapped drive on the server (and not under the Documents and Settings folder where they would normally be), even when it is not connected to the network, but the documents are there.
Anyone know how to configure things in this way. I asked our IT department at work and got nowhere! Someone did mention that XP home is a bit different and you have to log on in safe mode as administrator and change something but couldn't remember what!
Thanks in advance.
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a little advice in adavance.. dont disable/enable simple file sharing while typing up a response.. it will delete the whole ************.. here we go again..
xp is weird about sharing the "documents & settings", "program files" & windows folder..
here's how you do it;
1) boot in to safe mode
2) open my computer
3) click on tools/folder options
4) click on the view tab
5) scroll to the bottom and disable simple file sharing, click ok
6) go to the C:\Documents and Settings\"username" folder
7) right click on the folder and selct properties
8) click on the security tab
9) click advanced
10) click add
11) click advanced
12) click find now
13) scroll down the list and select "everyone", click ok
14) click ok, click "full control" under "allow", & click the box in the lower left hand corner
15) click ok..
16) you should be back to the security tab window, click on the "sharing tab"
17) click "share this folder" & select a name
18) click "permissions"
19) and you can select the type of controls you want to allow over this folder for the "everyone" user.
20) click ok, click ok.. and you're finally done!
its a bitch and a half to share these types of folders in xp, but it can be done.. it took me about a day to figure out how to do it about 6 or 7 months ago -
That's absolutely brilliant thanks. I've spent about the last week going round and round in circles trying to find this on the microsloth website. I shall give it a try as soon as I get home tonight.
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Oh well, I've got closer but still not close enough. Following the instructions I've managed to set sharing for the My Documents folder. I've also copied this folder from the laptop hard drive to the hard drive on my desktop. I've then mapped that desktop folder as a shared Z: drive on the laptop. What I can't do now is get Synchronize to recognise it. If I go into Synchronize I only have the option of synchronising my current homepage as an offline web page. There are no offline folders showing up so I can't select the mapped drive to synchronize.
Anyone got any further clues (or do I remove the pre-installed Windows XP Home and put XP Pro on the laptop, something I'd really only do as a last resort as it is currently under warranty)? -
what is the point of getting sychronize to recognise it? does it make the my documents folders the same (file wise) on both pc's?
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Yes, using Synchronise means that identical files are stored on two machines and can be worked on on either machine. It is set up to check the files whenever the laptop connects to, and/or disconnects from, the network. At that point, it checks the details of the files and copies the latest version of any that have been changed to the other machine.
In practice, this means that the laptop documents can be worked on when it isn't connected to the network but as soon as it does, any files that have altered are copied across to the main machine. Equally, if the laptop is switched off and in it's bag, a file can still be altered on the main machine and the later version is copied across to the laptop the next time it connects. It also means that, as everything is duplicated on both machines, hard drive failure on either (or the laptop getting nicked!) means that nothing has been lost. Basically, it's an automated, no user input, backup system that works in both directions.
Or it would be if I could get it to work.......
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