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Is there any program to really sync folders with many subfolders and files?

I am looking for a program which syncs my a folder on my PC, including all files and subfolders, with a folder on my PDA's memory card.
I have searched the web and there are 2 programs .. MobSync (which doesn't work on Windows Mobile 5, or at least it doesn't work on my machine) and ACiD Sync which looks promising but lacks many features.
Bellow is what I have written in the ACiD Sync author's forum.
Do you know of any good program which syncs folders with lots of files between the PDA and the PC?
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Until 2006 I had a Windows Mobile 2003 SE PDA, and there was a free program called MobSync which worked perfectly for this.
I used to sync my "N:\Work Documents" (where N: is a network drive) folder with my Storage Card\Work Documents folder on the PDA.
The folder is my main document folder and contains over 1200 files. The total size of the folders is around 700 MB.
The fact that I could sync all my documents, images, etc has enhanced the usefulness of my PDA immensely.
Then my PDA broke and I purchased a Windows Mobile 5 PDA. Surprise! MobSync stopped working for some reason. Sad It seems that the new ActiveSync doesn't contain the necessary functions.
So.. I have no solution for synchronizing My Documents, and I just found ACiD Sync.
Unfortunately, altough document synchronization is immensely and tremendously useful, I can't use ACiD Sync.
Why is that? What features are a MUST HAVE for ACiD Sync?
1. The synched folders should be configurable, both on the PC and on the PDA.
This is extremely important. Without this features, I can't use the program - to me it is totally useless.
2. I should be able to define exceptions - for example:
- don't sync .RAR and .ZIP files
- don't sync .BMP files which are over 200 KB in size
- don't sync subfolder with a certain name
3. In case files are deleted on the PC or PDA, there should be safety features for preserving the files in case of a mistake.
Using my old PDA with MobSync, I came across this situation: somehow the SD card in the PDA came off for a bit, it was no longer connected because it was not inserted completely. MobSync has seen this as "Hey! The folder PDA\Storage Card\Work Documents is empty! This means the user has deleted the files! Let's mirror this action to the PC!" ... and then MobSync proceeded and ERASED ALL MY DOCUMENTS!
Good thing I had a backup! The lesson I learned is that synchronization can be dangerous if some safety features are missing.
Here are some safety features I suggest for ACiD Sync:
- When a file is deleted on one side (for example on the PC), then don't delete the file on the other side (for example on the PDA). Just move it to a "Deleted files" folder. Offer a way to manage this "Deleted files" folder - for example specify that it can't be over 200 MB in size.
For example:
On the PDA, I delete \Storage Card\Work Documents\Old Reports\1.doc
When syncing, ACiD Sync should detect this. So there's a document on the PC called
N:\Work Documents\Old Reports\1.doc
This should be moved to:
N:\Deleted files\Old Reports\1.doc
- If a large number of files on the PC or on the PDA have been deleted, then show the user the list of deleted files, and ask the user if it's ok to delete the files on the other side! Do nothing until the user responds!
- What happens if the card is removed from the PDA, and another card is inserted, and the sync performed? ACiD Sync should detect this situation and NOT interpret it as in "Hey! All the files have been deleted on the PDA ... so let's delete them on the PC, too!"
4. In case of conflict (file XYZ.DOC has been edited on both the PC and the PDA), there should be a better way to solve conflicts than "replace file on PC with the file on the PDA" or the reverse.
For example, ACiD Sync chould preserve both versions of the file, with names such as:
XYZ - modified on the PC.doc
XYZ - modified on the PDA.doc
5. Make sure you offer the option NOT to convert the synced files. This is important - I want my documents to be in .DOC format and not be converted to the PDA format.
Or perhaps I have some .MP3 files that I want to sync to the PDA without converting.
6. Many programs for PDAs make the assumption of running with very limited resources. Because of this, they don't offer options should as syncing big files, etc. I think this helps users with limited resources, but is a mistake because it hurts users with more resources, who want to do more.
I am a business user. My SD card is 2 GB in size, and I will soon replace it with a 4 GB card. Why? Because I can use the extra space, it's useful to me, and because I can afford it.
So.. please take into account the needs of users with limited resources.. but also the needs of users for whom the PDA is very important, and are willing to invest into a powerful PDA with lots of storage space, VGA screen, direct 3G connection, fast WiFi, etc.
Thank you for reading this far!

http://www.mydocsunlimited.com/html/mightysync.html - this may help

Mobsync, works great for me.

JeromeMorrow said:
Mobsync, works great for me.
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Click to collapse
Jepp, same here, even the last pre-commercial version (0.97) did.

Yes, this version I have.

fonts for ppc

anyone know a good resource for ppc/pda fonts please.pref graffitti style
thanks

PPC uses exactly the same font format as desktop windows, so you can copy any font in your c:\windows\fonts folder to \windows (on the PPC) and it will work (after soft reset).
Also any sites with fonts for windows will do. (Sorry, don't know any myself)

cheers mate,i hadnt realised they were the same
thanks

some intresting fonts here if it helps anyone else cheers
http://www.graffitifonts.com/fonts.shtml

jaceuk said:
some intresting fonts here if it helps anyone else cheers
http://www.graffitifonts.com/fonts.shtml
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Click to collapse
Thanks for that link - I use the Tempus Sans itc font myself on my device and it works well as a graffiti font.

Hitting error!
Happy new year everyone.
I just started to use Dopod 838 Pro about 3 weeks ago, and I have this problem :
1.) I like to use this font - Times New Roman, and when I tried to copy ALL the four TTF files (TIMES / TIMESI / TIMESBD / TIMESBI) from my notebook /Windows/Fonts folder to PDA's /Windows/Fonts, I hit error when come to Sync process :
Cannot copy 'TIMESI.TTF'. Make sure your mobile device has sufficient memory, that the file is not set as read-only, and that you have permission to copy this file type.
Why am I hitting this error (for ALL the four TTF files)? However, I'm still able to use the fonts (normal / italic / bold / bold+italic). Is there anyway to get rid of this error? Is there any step I have missed out for copying true type fonts from computer to PDA? Anyone out there care to help? Thank you very much in advance.

Stupid question but did you actually check the size?
On systems with many locales or Asian fonts one TTF file can reach 2MB.
It is possible that you are running out of storage memory.
Also, if the files already exist on your device you would not be able to copy over them.

I've already checked on the font size when the errors were prompted (as follow) :
TIMES - 399K
TIMESBD - 389K
TIMESBI - 234K
TIMESI - 242K
I've copied all those four files into \Windows\Fonts, and I'm able to use the fonts in the program, ie. to change it in Excel files. I have more than enough space in my device : Storage Free (25.05 MB) & Program Free (average 25MB most of the time). But I just don't understand this error was hit!?
Before I copied the TTF files into my device, I'm very sure there was no such fonts pre-loaded, so it couldn't be duplication issue.
I'm really scratching my head these days to find out the solution!

eDee said:
I've already checked on the font size when the errors were prompted (as follow) :
TIMES - 399K
TIMESBD - 389K
TIMESBI - 234K
TIMESI - 242K
I've copied all those four files into \Windows\Fonts, and I'm able to use the fonts in the program, ie. to change it in Excel files. I have more than enough space in my device : Storage Free (25.05 MB) & Program Free (average 25MB most of the time). But I just don't understand this error was hit!?
Before I copied the TTF files into my device, I'm very sure there was no such fonts pre-loaded, so it couldn't be duplication issue.
I'm really scratching my head these days to find out the solution!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It may be activesync thats kicking up the error - copy the fonts directly to storage card via a card reader or wm5torage and copy fonts to windows\fonts using total commander or gsfinder file explorers.

This is probabley another stupid question but once you've added new fonts into a ppc where do you change the default font??
I'm using a tytn and can't find anywhere other than a spb diary setting.

spikey0321 said:
This is probabley another stupid question but once you've added new fonts into a ppc where do you change the default font??
I'm using a tytn and can't find anywhere other than a spb diary setting.
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Click to collapse
I didn't change the default font after I've copied to my device \Windows\fonts.
meschle said:
It may be activesync thats kicking up the error - copy the fonts directly to storage card via a card reader or wm5torage and copy fonts to windows\fonts using total commander or gsfinder file explorers.
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Click to collapse
I have just tried your method (deleted the fonts before I re-copied directly without using sync options), but still hitting the stupid error!!
I gave up! I just leave the error there, it shown 4 Unresolved Items. But I still managed to use the fonts when editing my files in the device. And no problem also for me to continue sync the rest.
Just hope there's a solution one fine day!

spikey0321 said:
This is probabley another stupid question but once you've added new fonts into a ppc where do you change the default font??
I'm using a tytn and can't find anywhere other than a spb diary setting.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
There are numerous references to the tahoma font in the registry it would be a bit laborious to change all the references but possible using search in phm regedit look for tahoma. make sure you know what your doing and have a backup of your registry and device.
Or you could overwrite tahoma.ttf and the bold version with a font renamed to tahoma.ttf - i tried it in the past and it worked.
There is an app pocket tweak but it only changes some of the default fonts.

Thanks anyway, everyone!
Hope there is a solution one fine day, any other advice/guides would be very much appreciated.

eDee said:
I didn't change the default font after I've copied to my device \Windows\fonts.
I have just tried your method (deleted the fonts before I re-copied directly without using sync options), but still hitting the stupid error!!
I gave up! I just leave the error there, it shown 4 Unresolved Items. But I still managed to use the fonts when editing my files in the device. And no problem also for me to continue sync the rest.
Just hope there's a solution one fine day!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Sorry where did you delete the fonts from and did you manage to get the fonts onto the storage card? You cant overwrite or delete the fonts in the windows\fonts directory on the device whithout renaming i.e font.tt instead of font.ttf and resetting and then delete or add the new font. Hope that helps

meschle said:
Sorry where did you delete the fonts from and did you manage to get the fonts onto the storage card? You cant overwrite or delete the fonts in the windows\fonts directory on the device whithout renaming i.e font.tt instead of font.ttf and resetting and then delete or add the new font. Hope that helps
Click to expand...
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Well... I can't really remember how I deleted the fonts...
I did hit an error when trying to delete the fonts inside my PDA \Windows\Fonts, so what I did was CUT the four files from the \Windows\Fonts to \My Documents and deleted them from the \My Documents folder.
After removing the TTF files, I changed the Sync options to exclude FILES from being sync. Then I sent ALL the four files to my PDA directly via Bluebooth. At first I thought I could fool around with the ActiveSync, but after sending the files (via BT) which eventually stored into PDA's \My Documents folder as well, I CUT the files and pasted them into \Windows\Fonts. There wasn't any error before I resumed the FILES sync option, unfortunately... after I have revert the FILES sync option, the error re-occured again.
Nevertheless, as I've mentioned, I still able to use the TIMES fonts for my Excel files. I'm trying to browse through MSDN Library website ( http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/en-us/dnanchor/html/WinMobile_TechArticles.asp )to find out the solution.
Cheers.

File Management (Clean-up)

Hio all. I'm having a problem with my T-Mobile Dash, but it's such an ordinary seeming problem within WM6 that I think it belongs here.
Pretty much, since yesterday, I've been getting errors saying that I'm low on storage. First thing I did was dump the PIE cache (10 MB), and the problem seemed to go away. However, once I woke up the next day (today), I was getting the same error. Lo and Behold, I'm down to 3.5K of internal storage, and I've even dropped to 0B.
All my caches have been dumped, and I keep everything sizable (pictures, video, audio, documents, programs larger than 300K) on my microSD card, but for some reason, something has been consuming tons of storage.
I'm trying to figure out, what files are safe to delete? Below is a rough sketch of my filesystem
Application Data: 10.9 MB (Largest contents: "Home" folder at 612 KB; "WordToGo" with a single file "22960WdDoc.dvz" sized at 934 KB; "Sounds" with various stock tones; "Volatile" at 8.1 MB, with 80 0B folders, "MIM4AF9.tmp" at 1.9 MB, "MIM9D83.tmp" at 3.9 MB, and "MIME3C0.tmp" at 2.4 MB)
cemail.vol: 1.3 MB
Documents and Settings: 996 KB
MAPI: 0B
Mobsh.txx: 1 KB
msg.txt: 4 KB (contains gibberish I never saw before)
mxip_initdb.vol: 28 KB
mxip_lang.vol: 96 KB
mxip_notify.vol: 212 KB
mxip_system.vol: 192 KB
My Documents: 3.4 MB
pim.vol: 3.4 MB
Program Files: 17.8 MB (Already scoured for caches)
Reg: 1 KB
Temp: 8KB
untitled: 1 KB
Windows: 100 MB
The Windows Folder is the one that interests me the most. When I browse it with Total Commander hiding all ROM files, I still get a mind bogglingly large number of files. When browsing on my computer, I am told I have over 1,560 files. For example, there are 31 image files that start with an underscore (_), and I've got a whole bunch DSM and RGU files (94 DSMs at about 252 KB, 54 RGUs at 1.3 MB) and a ton of other files I can't identify.
Any clues on what I could delete, or suggestions on tools that do some memory maintenance?
Thanks for the help!

Do not delete stuff from your windows directory.
a) Not all OS files are marked as ROM. You still see a lot of OS with the ROM option off.
b) If you do manage to delete something from windows one app or another is guaranteed to stop working.
c) Your only safe bets are the tmp files in volotile and whatever you got in My Documents folder.
d) Do not touch vol files - these are contacts and other system databases.

A thread on cleaning up. I should've started this eons ago.
Most of the programs you install tend to want to put anywhere between 1 - 50 files in your Windows Directory. This is one of the reasons it takes forever to load the contents of the Windows directory.
Over the last few weeks, in the process of achieving a one click setup after hard resets, I managed to narrow down and filter out what goes into the Windows folder. In all I have about 1684 files under my Windows Folder after installing Esmertec JBED, Resco Explorer, SafeMode, WLM, SMS DR Fix, Transcriber and ATI Fix for Hermes using the Supa Dupa Lite WM6 ROM.
I have noticed that there are scores of image files built into the ROM. It would be great if some of the chefs could move the image files into another folder called 'images' under the Windows folder to minimize the time it would take to list the contents of the Windows Folder. Most of the registry entries could be edited to point to this new folder, unless of course some apps have the image locations hard coded into the programs themselves.
Coming back to your problem, the only solution aside from a monitored installation after a hard reset is to delete the Volatile Folder under Application Data and the *.tmp files.

Slow Vista file transfer to //Windows on device.

Hi everybody,
I am, as most of you know a skinner here on the forum.
So first of all i little explanation:
All dialers that I know of install all of their images in the /Windows directory on your mobile device. So when I skin a dialer I have to copy my files to that directory over and over.
In windows XP, the browser only had to load the file list from /Windows once and when it was done doing so, it blasted all images to the /Windows folder.
So I had to wait half a minute and then I just copied over all files, great!
Now I use Vista and it has to load then complete new file list for every file it want's to copy to the /Windows directory. With my previous dialers, I was ok with that. (+/- 20-30 images) But with the new Opal and Diamond dialer it has gotten a lot more. (total of ~350 images) That means I have to wait 350*30= 10500 seconds -> almost three hours for all files to be copied! And that is just demoralising!
So any suggestions on making this work faster are much appreciated!
I've tried to use Total Commander but it does not recognise my pocket pc and nor does FastCopy.
Thanks in advance (even for reading the enitre story )

Well, for me I had to connect my phone to my PC using the USB Mass Storage option instead of Activesync to increase the copying speed. I am using a Touch Pro.

That will prevent me from seeing the windows directory :/
Only sd card is visible then.

pauldgroot said:
Hi everybody,
I am, as most of you know a skinner here on the forum.
So first of all i little explanation:
All dialers that I know of install all of their images in the /Windows directory on your mobile device. So when I skin a dialer I have to copy my files to that directory over and over.
In windows XP, the browser only had to load the file list from /Windows once and when it was done doing so, it blasted all images to the /Windows folder.
So I had to wait half a minute and then I just copied over all files, great!
Now I use Vista and it has to load then complete new file list for every file it want's to copy to the /Windows directory. With my previous dialers, I was ok with that. (+/- 20-30 images) But with the new Opal and Diamond dialer it has gotten a lot more. (total of ~350 images) That means I have to wait 350*30= 10500 seconds -> almost three hours for all files to be copied! And that is just demoralising!
So any suggestions on making this work faster are much appreciated!
I've tried to use Total Commander but it does not recognise my pocket pc and nor does FastCopy.
Thanks in advance (even for reading the enitre story )
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Your device has to refresh after every file copy, or Vista has to refresh the file list? What vista file browser are you using? Are you using Windows Mobile Device Center?
I have Vista Business x64 and I'm not having any problems copying to and from the \Windows dir. I will help you as much as possible.

It's not copying from the device but to the device that takes a very long time.
I'm using the standard file browser from vista and Ultimate x86 with WMDC.

My laptop (Windows Vista Home Basic) takes ages when copying files from my laptop to the /Windows directory on my device too. When I try to copy files for a Manilla2D theme for example, it takes about 5 hours.

In Vista make sure that you have "show hidden files and folder" deselected in Folder Options. Also, try disabling the "Show system files" option as well. This should minimize the number of files that explorer will try to display when refreshing, thus a speed increase.
I'll try to look into this more, as I just copied all the opal phone canvas files to \windows from my vista machine. It only took ~2 minutes to copy all the files.

KMFM$ said:
In Vista make sure that you have "show hidden files and folder" deselected in Folder Options. Also, try disabling the "Show system files" option as well. This should minimize the number of files that explorer will try to display when refreshing, thus a speed increase.
I'll try to look into this more, as I just copied all the opal phone canvas files to \windows from my vista machine. It only took ~2 minutes to copy all the files.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
But when I do this, I can't access the /Windows directory because its a system file?

JamminJaguar said:
But when I do this, I can't access the /Windows directory because its a system file?
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Click to collapse
Hmmm. Do you have your device configured with Mobile Device Center (setup to sync)? I ask because I don't sync anything with it. I simply use it to connect to the phone. Maybe this has something to do with it.
I'll also check the speed settings in Device Manager. Maybe there is something to adjust there.

One option I use is to pull the card and use a USB card reader to drag the files over. Lightening fast. The other is the USB connection option on some of the newer ROMS i.e. DCDs, Scrosslers (DCD variant). Has very fast directoru refresh and copy.

Solution to Vista problem
pauldgroot said:
Hi everybody,
I am, as most of you know a skinner here on the forum.
So first of all i little explanation:
All dialers that I know of install all of their images in the /Windows directory on your mobile device. So when I skin a dialer I have to copy my files to that directory over and over.
In windows XP, the browser only had to load the file list from /Windows once and when it was done doing so, it blasted all images to the /Windows folder.
So I had to wait half a minute and then I just copied over all files, great!
Now I use Vista and it has to load then complete new file list for every file it want's to copy to the /Windows directory. With my previous dialers, I was ok with that. (+/- 20-30 images) But with the new Opal and Diamond dialer it has gotten a lot more. (total of ~350 images) That means I have to wait 350*30= 10500 seconds -> almost three hours for all files to be copied! And that is just demoralising!
So any suggestions on making this work faster are much appreciated!
I've tried to use Total Commander but it does not recognise my pocket pc and nor does FastCopy.
Thanks in advance (even for reading the enitre story )
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Vista has it own problems. Maybe do a double boot and start XP when you need to . . .
From an IT standpoint this is why many companies and people are not using Vista . . .
I know it is not the solution fo choice but it would work . . . .

Windows TSD Files?

Under WM 6.5 in the Windows directory I find "Hidden Store/Tasks" that contains a large number of files of the kind *.tsd - what are these? Can they be deleted

I just backed them up and deleted them all from my Samsung O2. Everything appears to work the same. When I run some programs a tsd file gets created for that program. I think they are like a log ?