Help with maintenance laptop file synchronization

[wildswing 0]

Hey fellas, My IT guy's not at work today so I figured I'd ask here. I've got a couple of maintenance laptops that the guys use to talk to drives and a couple of oddball PLCs not on a network. We have always struggled with keeping up-to-date files on the laptop hard drives so the guys would be working with the latest and greatest versions. I finally have a couple of nice new laptops for them to use and want to go that extra step and save all the latest & greatest files on our server and both laptops. Won't be like that for long though once the guys start working with them. Traditionally I would manually check file dates and set them back up, copying the newest to where ever it needed to be. Both laptops have wireless capabilities and I can log on to our network using a global maintenance user name. What I'd like to do is set up a synchronization task or routine that would check to make sure the laptop is up to date or vice versa. Maybe have the guys log on in the shop to do the synch before going out into the field where the wireless network can't reach. Or maybe do it when they get back or both. Any suggestions on how to accomplish this file synchronization? Windows or 3rd party? FYI...we'd be looking to synch files from a variety of locations, not simply to/from one folder. Edited 7 Nov 2008 by wildswing

[PdL 71]

I like Syncback. It has a free edition which does just fine for me. Supports synchronising, backup etc. You can configure profiles to backup or synchronise from local or network drives, exclude file extentions or folder names, etc etc. http://www.2brightsparks.com/downloads.html The page is a bit cluttered but the ones with the nation flags is the freeware version. No trial time, adds or anything. I also use it at home to backup my photos and documents periodically to my 1TB network drive. Once you have set a profile its just a matter of running it and it just copies changed or new files. You can also configure periodic tasks.

[BobLfoot 301]

I've used Beyond Compare 2 from Scooter Software for what you describe. It has filters and code recognition schemes as well. It might be worth a checkout.