Syncing Files Between Desktop and Laptop

Switching back and forth between a desktop computer and a laptop can be tricky if you don't know about tools that allow you to easily accomplish this. One such tool is Microsoft's free SyncToy application.

You must download SyncToy from the Microsoft website and install it on both your desktop and laptop. Then on your desktop, go into SyncToy and specify which folders you want to sync. These folders will be the *left* folders. You may be able to connect your laptop directly to your desktop via a USB cable, depending on what version of Windows each computer is using. Usually, you will have to use an external hard drive to accomplish the file sync. In either case, your external hard drive or laptop will contain your *right* folders.

After setting up the sync on your desktop, open SyncToy on your laptop. Designate the folders that will be synced "back" to the desktop or external hard drive. In SyncToy on the laptop, these folders will be the *right* folders, and the external hard drive or desktop will the *left* folders. In other words, on the desktop you're syncing left to right, and on the laptop you're syncing right to left. If you don't set it up this way, new or updated files will be overwritten by old files.

You can use SyncToy to sync all your Outlook data, everything in the My Documents folder, and almost anything else. The important thing to remember, however, is that if you sync your files and then work on your laptop for awhile, it is imperative that you sync the files again before you switch back to the desktop computer. Otherwise, new or updated files will be overwritten by older ones.

When syncing a QuickBooks data file, it will be changed to a read-only file on the right (or destination) disk/computer. Just right-click on your Start button, go to "Explore," and locate the QuickBooks file. Right-click on it and choose Properties, then uncheck the Read Only box. Now you can use the QuickBooks data file on the destination computer/disk.