synchronise MS office xp outlook

miinkie

Hi everyone,
I would be grateful for your thoughts on a fix for this problem im having.

I have 3 rigs, a laptop and a handheld pc all on my network. The difficulty is that all of them have their own outlook contact details. I would like them all to be centrally held so that i do not have to individually synchronise them manually.

What would be the best fix for this?
Thanks in advance for the help

primesuspect

Welcome to the wide world of Microsoft Exchange

mtrox

I have a client on one of those shared Exchange Servers out on the 'net. But what I do is have my Outlook data (.pst) on my laptop, the location of the data files for Outlook on my desktop happen to be on the network share that's in my laptop. Its just pulling the data up off the laptop via the wireless network. So as long as my laptop is on I can open Outlook on my desktop. Then I always have all of my Outlook stuff with me in my laptop.

That's one way....and it's worked for quite a few years now.

Pterocarpous

MS Exchange would be over-the-top (at least cost-wise) for me, too.

Here's what I do.

• I have 4 machines on the network where I keep my outlook data files. (The redundancy is more for the safety of my data than for convenience.)
• I know this is reminiscent of sneaker net, but I've set up a folder on each one of the computers called MY OUTLOOK DATA SHORTCUTS.
• I then placed a (network) shortcut to the directory the outlook files reside in on each computer in that directory.
• In turn, I place a shortcut on my desktop to to that directory and call it NETWORK OUTLOOK DATA
• When I'm at a particular computer and I make any changes to any of my PST files, I copy the PST file(s) to each of the other network locations using my NETWORK OUTLOOK DATA shortcuts to get to them quickly - overwriting the PST file(s) there.
• Since I'm the only one making any changes to the files, it doesn't present a problem.
• The whole process takes less than 1 minute.

EDIT-1://
I like doing it this way rather than have it reside only on one computer. The reason is, if something goes haywire w/ the PST file(s) in one place, I have three other chances to get it(them) back. Also, if I need to take down the computer my PST files are living on (if they reside on only one computer), I can't get to them from any of the other computers. I can copy them to a different location, but then I have to change their paths in all the other computers. That's too much futzing around for me.
EDIT-2://
I do the same thing w/ my RoboForm data, Favorites, Bookmarks, etc. as well.

mtrox

Pterocarpous wrote:

EDIT-2://
I do the same thing w/ my RoboForm data, Favorites, Bookmarks, etc. as well.

You might want to check out SyncToy. It's a little MS thing where you can have it sync all the files you've choosen across a network. I thought if it because that's how I keep my ToboForm, Favs, etc identical on both computers.

Pterocarpous

mtrox wrote:

You might want to check out SyncToy. It's a little MS thing where you can have it sync all the files you've choosen across a network. I thought if it because that's how I keep my ToboForm, Favs, etc identical on both computers.

That's a good idea. I've futzed around w/ SyncToy, too. I've just been doing it this way for so long, I've gotten used to it. Hmmm, SyncToy.... forgot about that....

miinkie

Thanks all!!
MS exchange seems like overkill for my little network.

Will have a toy around wit SyncToy and see.

Thanks once again

Pterocarpous

miinkie wrote:

Thanks all!!
MS exchange seems like overkill for my little network.
Will have a toy around wit SyncToy and see.
Thanks once again

You're welcome miinkie. Check back here and let us know what you worked out end the end., ok?

Good Luck!