Looking for ideas - myWork folder - Local and Shared resource

[Dave Sell]

All,

I'm looking for ideas on how to implement this myself or even discover an off-the-shelf solution.

I work from 1 of 3 PCs on any given day. These are physically different machines. Due to the nature of my development environment, I need all my work to reside in the same folder on all the machines so I have a work folder called C:\Work on all 3 PCs.

Monday I use PC_1 and make changes to the C:\Work folder on PC_1. Tuesday I need to use PC_2. I go to PC_1 and upload the entire C:\Work folder to a server share (5 minutes). Then I go back to PC_2 and download the Work folder from the server share to the local filesystem on PC_2 (5 more minutes).

I had considered all 3 PCs instead of using a local resource, to use a network drive like \\server\mySharedWork. That way, all 3 PCs would map say W:\ to \\server\mySharedWork. That way they would all have the same configuration and all 3 would always have access to the most recent development environment.

I had to reject the \\server\mySharedWork solution because I go on the road alot to deploy software to customers, and obviously the network resource is gone. If I were to make a local copy of \\server\mySharedWork then the W:\ is no longer consistent. The local Work folder would have to be somewhere besides W:\.

So, I need a way to have a local folder like C:\myWork that I can use and it should self-synchronize with a network share like \\server\mySharedWork when the shared resource is available, and ignore the shared resource when it is not available.

Sorry for the long-winded post, hope you were able to digest all that.

Any ideas? This can't be the 1st time someone wants to do this.

P.S. I have a local Windows Workgroup, not a Windows Domain.

Dave

[Shaggy Hiker]

Only one system is portable, correct? Is this some company LAN, or is it a home network kind of setup?

[Dave Sell]

2 portable workstations (laptops), 1 desktop. Home network setup, but I use it for work (I work from home).

[Shaggy Hiker]

2 portable workstations!?!?!? Well, strike my first suggestion. I was going to suggest simply having the project folder as a shared folder on the portable, so that it is always with you, but that won't work.

I agree with your original statement that somebody MUST have dealt with this. You can synchronize databases on PDA's on plug-in, surely somebody has done some kind of synchronization for folders on a network, but maybe people just assume that network resources are effectively always available.

It seems like it would be relatively simple to create a program that runs on startup, or periodically, or on some other event, that copied the most up-to-date files from folder A to folders B, C, and etc.

[Dave Sell]

Also, keep in mind my current Work folder is 100MB. I have seen it get to 350MB before, and would like to allow it to grow to the size of a CD (700MB). I suppose it would imply a sophisticated way to update the server share, as opposed to brute-force file copying. Maybe I need something called a "Folder Synchronizer"?

[Dave Sell]

Looks like a bunch of utilities are out there associated with "Folder Synchronization".

[Dave Sell]

Er, did I mention that sometimes I walk from machine to machine making changes to the Work area on each machine's respective C:\Work folder? I suspect these utilities may be hard-pressed to keep up with my unorthodox working habits...

[Sgt-Peppa]

Er,maybe I did not understand correct what you are trying to do, but wouldnt a Source Control solve your problem?

Stephan

[Al42]

Look into Karen's Replicator. It's open source in VB6, so you might be able to make it do what you need, at least as far as keeping the 3 computers in sync. http://www.karenware.com/powertools/ptreplicator.asp

As far as keeping the drive letter the same on all 3 and keeping them in sync, you could try using the SUBST command to keep the files on your C:\Work directory as your W:\ directory. (Or don't specify absolute directories in your programs, so that it won't matter what the name of the directory is.)

[Dave Sell]

Sgt: No, a source control is only appropriate for source code - my work environment contains much more than source code; it contains everything including my client email directories.

Al42: Excelent link to Karen's tools - I am going to try her utility. Thanks also for the SUBST idea - I completely forgot about SUBST. I am not sure, however, how SUBST handles the loss of a network drive connection - I am going to play around with that also.