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Synctoy 2.0 - Best method to purging/refresh contribute pairs RRS feed

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    I'm a happy Synctoy user from way back, and have just stumbled across some curious behaviour with numerous contribute pairs..

    I was having trouble with disk space on the target drive, and decided the easiest way to reduce obsolete file bloat was purging the target directory outside of Synctoy 2.0, and then just rerun this pair, with the expectation that all the files from the source would be copied across.. Um, that didn't happen..

    Even though the directory contained no files, only 2 files (out of several thousand) were copied across when I reran the pair..

    How does Synctoy 2.0 store this info (where are the files stored, in user profiles, which dir etc), and how would I go about purging this "memory" - It would be a good idea to provide some method of doing this through the Synctoy 2.x updated GUI..
    Monday, April 13, 2009 12:01 PM

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    Hi -

    Just delete the folder pair and recreate it - this will get rid of all metadata that we store and start afresh.

    Thanks
    Deepa
    Deepa ( Microsoft Sync Framework)
    Monday, April 13, 2009 9:04 PM
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    Hi -

    The names of the SyncToy_*.dat files under the root folder will correspond to the names of the files under the %appdata% folder. Also, you should be able to find a SyncToyDirPairs.bin which contains the folder pair information. Save this file off somewhere - delete all folder pairs manually using the SyncToy GUI and then put this file back in place - this should bring all the folder pairs back.

    Thanks
    Deepa
    Deepa ( Microsoft Sync Framework)
    • Marked as answer by PJDuro Monday, April 13, 2009 10:54 PM
    Monday, April 13, 2009 10:33 PM

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    Hi -

    Just delete the folder pair and recreate it - this will get rid of all metadata that we store and start afresh.

    Thanks
    Deepa
    Deepa ( Microsoft Sync Framework)
    Monday, April 13, 2009 9:04 PM
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    Thanks for the comment Deepa..

    I was hesitant to delete and recreate these pairs, as I have quite a number of these and wanted an alternative to reinventing the wheel on this..

    If I was aware of where the files were located (which contained the sync info for these pairs) I could just purge these files directly, and not have to go through the pair creation for each and every one of the pairs I wanted to refresh..

    Either that, or maybe be able to save the pairs to a file, and then be able to import these, instead of having to recreate them using the wizard for each and every one..

    Cheers,

    D
    Monday, April 13, 2009 9:34 PM
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    Hi -

    If you deleted all the SyncToy_*.dat files that you find under the root of each folder pair and also similarly named files under %appdata%\Microsoft\SyncToy\2.0 it should remove the metadata we store. But please note that we really do not support doing this either.

    Thanks
    Deepa

    Deepa ( Microsoft Sync Framework)
    Monday, April 13, 2009 9:56 PM
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    Thanks for that Deepa.. Seems fairly straight forward to me.. Is there anyway of figuring out which files belong to which pair in those profile folders too?

    Also wondering if there is a way that I can export the pair info to a file, then delete these using the Synctoy 2.x GUI, and then reimport, saving me the hassle I was describing above.. Maybe using the cmdline client??
    Monday, April 13, 2009 10:16 PM
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    Hi -

    The names of the SyncToy_*.dat files under the root folder will correspond to the names of the files under the %appdata% folder. Also, you should be able to find a SyncToyDirPairs.bin which contains the folder pair information. Save this file off somewhere - delete all folder pairs manually using the SyncToy GUI and then put this file back in place - this should bring all the folder pairs back.

    Thanks
    Deepa
    Deepa ( Microsoft Sync Framework)
    • Marked as answer by PJDuro Monday, April 13, 2009 10:54 PM
    Monday, April 13, 2009 10:33 PM
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    Great - thanks for this!
    Monday, April 13, 2009 10:54 PM
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    Deepa - it seems that I am also syncing SyncToy_*.dat files from previously existing pairs (the commentary above relates to a pairing between the work laptop <source> and home desktop <destination>.. I also have existing pairs between work desktop <source> and work laptop <destination>

    Is there anyway of figuring out which pairs are obsolete, it seems that even though I took your advice and purged all the SyncToy_*.dat files found on the XP laptop C:\Documents and Settings\User\Local Settings\Application Data\Microsoft\SyncToy\2.0\*, and only have 4 pairs, there are now 8 new SyncToy_*.dat files found in this directory..

    I'm unsure which SyncToy_*.dat files found in the root <source> directories are active, and which are not.. Is there an relatively easy way to work this out?

    Cheers,

    D
    Tuesday, April 14, 2009 12:57 PM
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    Hi -

    If you have 4 folder pairs - then 8 SyncToy_*dat files are correct. And secondly if you deleted them from that directory and they were recreated - it definitely means that they are all current.

    Thanks
    Deepa
    Deepa ( Microsoft Sync Framework)
    Wednesday, April 15, 2009 10:45 PM