SyncToy

As a security or systems administrator, you've probably experienced the delays and hassle that occur when copying large amounts of data from one server to another. Intelligent replication software that's used to synchronize data between directories is certainly not new—Robocopy, Microsoft's standard "free" synchronization software, has been around a while and even has GUI add-on front ends to make it easy to use.

But Robocopy isn’t Microsoft’s only synchronization software. SyncToy, a PowerToy from Microsoft, syncs quickly and offers several customization options, including the ability to schedule jobs instead of running them manually. Let's look at how and when you should use SyncToy to copy data.

Playing with PowerToys

PowerToys are software written by Microsoft engineers but not officially supported by the company.  PowerToys were first released with Windows 95 as free, often niche products that someone at Microsoft found useful enough to release to the masses. (You might recall other popular PowerToys such as Open Command Window Here and Tweak UI.) You can download the latest PowerToys for Windows XP directly from Microsoft (http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/downloads/powertoys/xppowertoys.mspx).     . . .