Try Laptop Backup (Synchronization Tool) – AllwaySync

I’m new to the Vista operating system. What more do I need to say? This article is about my recent trials and tribulations with the “System Restore Point” feature in Microsoft Vista, Dell support, and the apparent need for better Synchronization software on my laptop.

- DV

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Oh, dear , oh dear… What kind of geek am I?

I am the warm blooded, estrogen laden, long haired and wide hipped version of the geeky variety of the human species. How can I tell? Well, I’m looking up at the installation box and disks of Dos version 2.1 in my office as I type. Sadly enough, I keep it to remind me of the good memories of that time in my life. Yes, there are a few of us female types out here. We are just not as easy to pick out as the male variety; our shirts rarely have a front pocket in needing protection.

Geek

Not so needless to say, I have been quite comfortable as well as certified in couple of the Microsoft Operating Systems, but this Vista thing, as of a few weeks ago, has “rankled my craw”.

Is that phrase for real?

So here I am, a week or so ago, happily crusing along… just laptoping away without much of a care in the world.

Geek nirvana

Then my world came a sort of crumbling… my Vista laptop would not boot into the OS. This one day, Microsoft (those fiends!!!) decided that they would send my loving little laptop a service pack that would make me rue the day I left automatic installations on. You see, that was the Wednesday (yes, Wednesday) that I had planned to work on a synchronization (backup) plan for my laptop. Had it all scheduled to do and everything, but I woke up to a laptop that would not boot into the operating system.

Add expletive here

Now, I say “sort of crumbling” because most of my “important” data is saved and stored to a server I have setup at home that was specifically built to keep my data safe and warm. But to spite my conservative nature, as I attempted again and again to reboot my laptop, I began my brand new adventure (and my new mantra… the glass is half full… the glass is half full… the glass is…).

Although my “important” data had been stored safely on my data server, my less complete data was now gone. I generally keep a “working” data folder on my laptop as I am creating, working, and editing data. Once finished with the completed data I move it on to my server. This incomplete data after a while becomes extensive. In addition I had been in the process of moving much of my local stored files from my old Viao to my new Dell, and this process was only half finished. I lost lots of work, and lots of “unimportant” data I was working on. Data I was not quite finished organizing and had grown quite attached to. Poof!

Yes, I should have known better.

In short, when I called Dell to see what my options for my beloved laptop were I soon found out that the “Restore Point” would not allow me to return to it, making the operating system not boot up, making me not able to install over the old operating system, giving me the options of finding another computer where I could connect my disk drive and literally grab all of the little bits of data off of… or just call it a day and rebuilt the booger.

I rebuilt the booger

Yes, I gave my data over to gods of impermanence and I blew it away; placing the clean factory install of Vista back on to my laptop (please… no comments from the gallery.) So my new adventure led me to learn:

• I use a LOT of software these days. A LOT. The biggest loss to me was the time it took to figure out all the different tools I use on my laptop, and install them all.

In this case, I had been lucky enough to have taken a picture of my laptop desktop, so I could quickly get back the tools I had installed. There were two unidentifiable pieces of software that I used but could not remember the names. This was very sad to me, because generally when I choose a tool it has taken an investment of some research. These two tools were lost at a price.

• I needed to make an effort to move as many applications to point the “working” documents to my working data folder and back that up. And for those applications that refuse to let me choose where the data will go, I will need to back up my profile on my laptop.

The issue of reinstallation is certainly a different post.

I did want to find a free tool to handle the backup and synchronization of my working folder and my profile.

The Search for Free Synchronization Software

So I began my search for backup software that not only was free, would back up my laptop, but also in the future synchronize the working data between my various computers and laptops. Although I am not using this synchronizing feature now, I am considering using the feature in the future.

So I started searching and trying to find free backup software. It has certainly been an interesting experience. I tried a handful of the free a “complimented” synchronization software on the Internet and I found there is a bunch of just plain old junk out there that cannot even backup the longer file paths commonly needed today. Silly huh? Also there seems to be some software out there, that gives you a false sense of security about your files being synced or backed up and it appears that they really don’t.

Ouch… that is scary. Yup…

So, on to my search:

Free synchronization unreliable tools I have tried out so far:

• Microsoft Sync Toy version 1.4 – this looked the most promising, Microsoft right? But did not work as well as I thought it should, I was getting path size errors, and apparently many other’s had had similar issues. As I looked at the forum comments further I thought it very odd that Microsoft might be limited by path size (which at first seemed to me to be based on an old 16 bit API issue). I checked and I did have the version for Vista which is 1.4. So I researched some more and based on some of the reviews, it appears that I may have run into some .Net incompatibilities based on version 1.4 of the software. Doesn’t seem right that Microsoft left this product relying on the version 1.1 of the .Net framework. This did not leave me with a warm fuzzy feeling leaving my backups to Microsoft. Bummer.

• FullSync – This software was pretty good but relied on regular expressions to exclude files and folders from the list to backup. I really just want to point and click to exclude folders. Using regular expressions is a powerful tool, it is just not for me in my laptop sync software. If you are comfortable coming up with regular expressions just to exclude files and folders this may be the perfect tool for you.

Well, where has Dharma landed?

Allway Sync 7.1.2 – So far the backups are running well. It will not backup open files (common in backup software), but it gets what I need done. There is also a pro version of this piece of software that will perform centralized synchronization from a server on the network. I’m trying to keep it simple at this point. And they keep up their product… yeah! There is one problem with the free version of the software, there is no bandwidth throttle, which just means I will have to schedule synchronization while I am not using my laptop, or use the feature that runs the backup when the computer is idle.

Another thing I really like about Allway Sync is the ease in which I can exclude folders from the sync. Once the initial backup has been run, I play with my laptop for a while, then run the analysis tool. Then I see what cache folders within my profile I don’t want to backup. I just select, never sync the specified folder and done. No special search criteria, and I don’t even have to refresh my knowledge of regular expressions like some tools would like me to do. Although a nice feature, I shouldn’t have to be a programmer to exclude folders from my synchronization backup.

There are other tools out there that a much more efficient in backing up and syncing data from your devices. One such tool is called Unison, which is open source, but using it is at the price of some complexity. As the number of my devices begin to grow, I will consider such a product for synchronization. Currently, the free version of Allway Sync is working as I expect it to, which is what backup software should do. -DV

Notes:

There is another free product out there called GoodSync that appears from the screens shots to be some what identical to Allway Sync. I have not yet checked to see if these two are the same or if either has newer features.

I have also found something called FolderShare that Microsoft has out on the web that is in beta. This places the folders you are sharing out on the web. This has a different sign-in than their SkyDrive Windows Live tool. I wonder what the difference is (other than a download). I may have to check this out.

As in any new tool, try at your own risk.

Articles that may interest you:

Other tools that I have tried

What Hardware and OS is Dharma V. Using?

Download and Try Allway Sync 7.1.2

Check out Microsoft FolderShare