Enter SyncToy 2.0 from Microsoft.

SyncToy allows you to keep two directories in sync. It’s a simple, unitasking tool that does its job extremely well. Here’s how I use it:

1. I sync my Music folder from my desktop to my NAS box
2. I sync the Music folder from the NAS box to my laptop

SyncToy allows you to do a full sync where source and target are made the same. Files deleted from the source are removed from the target. Files added to the source are added to the target. Files changed on the target are also changed on the source. This means that the NAS music folder is changing based on additions made from either the desktop or the laptop. Those changes are reflected to both devices.

SyncToy has three operational modes:

• Synchronize: New and updated files are copied both ways. Renames and deletes on either side are repeated on the other.
• Echo: New and updated files are copied left to right. Renames and deletes on the left are repeated on the right.
• Contribute: New and updated files are copied left to right. Renames on the left are repeated on the right. No deletions are performed.

You may wonder why I bother with the NAS device. It’s possible to have SyncToy just keep the folders on the desktop and laptop in sync, but including the NAS box also gives me a full backup of my music library and makes it available (read only) to other devices in the house. I can stream music to my XBOX without having to have either the desktop or the laptop up and running.

Sometimes, simple tools are the best. SyncToy does one thing and does it very well.

When you’re forced to work on a Unix infrastructure on a Windows desktop, the very first tool you want is an ssh client. I’ve long used PuTTY for this. It’s an excellent tool and has all the bells and whistles that I need: certificate management, port forwarding, configurable terminal, screen support, etc. It has a couple of quirks that I don’t like, the most notable being that it stores its saved settings in the registry so it’s difficult to move saved settings from one machine to another. That’s not a show stopper, but as I’ve expanded my Windows work lately it became a real annoyance. I’ve been configuring multiple Windows machines for sys admin work and having to reenter the servers on every machine is a pain.

I took a look around at the state of Windows ssh tools and found a couple that looked really nice. I played around with them and enjoyed things like separate configuration files that are easily transportable. Some had built in scp clients. All were good, solid tools.

But I’m back to PuTTY. Despite not being updated since early 2007, PuTTY is still a solid tool. It’s memory footprint is small. It’s easy to install. It’ll run in a standalone USB key environment. There’s now a Linux version, though I’ve not used it. It just works. Every time. With no futzing about. It’s old, stodgy and very, very reliable. It is the best ssh client for Windows.

Two additional points: if you need scp, the PuTTY scp client works, but it’s not got a lot of features. Try WinSCP instead. Secondly, when is Microsoft going to get with the program and put an ssh client directly into the Windows shell? Being able to run “ssh -l 8080:remote:8080 -X somemachine.com” directly from the command line is, for me, more intuitive and easier to do. One of the drawbacks of being a crotchety old Unix admin.