Synchronize files between laptop and desktop

I recently reloaded my laptop with the restore CD's that came with it, only to find that they had Windows XP home on them.  Home does not support offline file synchronization, so I was in the same boat as you.  I did a lot of searching and what ended up working the best for me was a program called Vice Versa.  It is very easy to use and does directory replication pretty much exactly like offline files.

Synching your Outlook should be easy enough.  You will need to make sure that your Outlook is saving everything to a PST file, which is standard by default if you are using pop accounts.  You will need to make sure that Computer A and Computer B are both using the exact same filename for this pst file, and do the synching on that directory.  So for example...

Computer A - At work
Store your PST in your MyDocuments folder in a directory called Email and name it whatever, email.pst for example

Computer B - Laptop
Copy the PST to the same place (or any place really because Vice Versa does not care if the directories are named the same if you are just synching what is in them.)

Set up a synch job in Vica Versa to synch the contents both ways between the two directories.

You can set your Synch jobs to run at startup, shutdown, or create an icon for that specific job which makes it handy.  

Let me know if you need more details, but it works flawlessly.  Highly recommended.

Here is the link to Vice Versa.  --> http://www.tgrmn.com/   It has a 30 day fully functional trial.

If you are looking for free software, I found a couple software projects on SourceForge.net that you should check out. File and Directory Synchronizer (http://sourceforge.net/projects/filesync) and Directory Synchronization Utility (http://sourceforge.net/projects/syncdir3).
They look like neat little projects and I think I might take them for a test drive if i get some time tonight.

Cheers

for files only there is of course the Synchtoy for WinXP

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/downloads/powertoys/xppowertoys.mspx
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/using/digitalphotography/prophoto/synctoy.mspx

Thanks ola_erik

usign the microsoft tool what would i put in for address of the laptop, I have it setup ont he network as a workgroup computer.  i need to know what path to use to sync to outlook folder on that workgroup pc.

hand me the points pls, they are warm and nice...