Final Step to a Network

  • Thread starter Thread starter Mark J.
  • Start date Start date
M

Mark J.

I am a home user and have four machines located throughout my house all
connected in a workgroup. Two are Win 98 SE, one is Win 2000 and the one
designated for use a fileserver is an XP Pro machine. All are connected
through a router to the Internet with a cable connection. All machines are
now connected and I would like to use the XP Pro machine as the only one
which will store data so that I can easily backup everything to CD's.

What steps are necessary to have the XP Pro machine receive all the data
from the other three machines as it occurs? What additional steps are
necessary to enable the three machines not storing any data to retrieve it
from the XP Pro machine? Thanks very much.
 
Hi, Mark -

What you're asking is a bit out of the realm of XP
Professional and a whole lot more appropriate for a
server based OS such as Windows 2003.

But - since we're working with Windows XP let's see what
we can do to get you where you want to be :)

There's no mechanism in Windows XP to force remote users
to save files anywhere - I think the solution you're
looking for will require a combination of user training
and some reconfiguration on the workstations.

It is possible to redirect the user's "My Documents"
folder to a folder on another machine - then all you'd
have to do is train your users to put anything they want
backed up in their "My Documents" folder. Take a look at
this article -

Redirect My Documents Folder to a Network Share
http://www.microsoft.com/WindowsXP/expertzone/tips/july02/
honeycutt.asp

There isn't anything that comes with Windows XP that will
retrieve data from a remote machine or restore it if
necessary - I think the best you're gonna be able to do
is redirect a couple of folders and grab the data that
way.

The client machines can also use Task Scheduler to push
their files to a network share - all you'd need to do is
write a short batch file to copy the data and call it
with Task Scheduler, or you could create a task on the
WinXP machine to reach out and grab the data.

I think your best bet would be to redirect the "My
Documents" folders on the client machines and then just
back those up - if you can train your users to keep all
their documents in there it'd probably be the safest way
to keep all the data in one location.

hth -
 
Hi Allan,

Thanks for answering. I think it will be easy to keep all the data we would
want to retain in the My Documents folder on the three "user" machines. I'm
not sure what what you mean by redirect the My Documents folder, though. How
and where should the My Documents folder be redirected?
 
Hi again, Mark :)

Let's suppose you redirected the "My Documents" folders
on the Win2k and Win98 machines to folders you created on
the WinXP machine. The Expert Zone article I referred to
in my earlier post explains how to set up the Win2k and
Win98 machines to use a "My Documents" folder on a
network drive - so here's what you'd do:

First, make sure all the users have valid user accounts
on the Windows XP box.

Then, create folders on the WinXP machine to house the
user's My Documents folders - let's say you created
folders called user_a, user_b and user_c.

Then all you have to do is share out the three user
folders and using the .inf file specified in the article
I mentioned, set the Win2k and Win98 machines to use
those shared folders as the local "My Documents" folder.

hth -
 
Allan,
With all your help, I think I almost have it. Unfortunately, the link you
provided is no longer available. Any idea where I can find it?
 
Can I suggest an alternative that I use - not necesarily better but another
way to do things:

1] Allow all users to store data locally in C:\My Documents
2] Install File SyncForce on each machine
http://www.objectforce.com/FileSyncForce.php. It is quite a cheap program.
3] Set up File Sync on each computer to automatically backup every file in
My Documents to the XP server every time any file is changed - you can set
how often it checks to any frequency you like, put in filters to only backup
certain files, select more than one folder, and include or exclude sub
folders. I also backup some specific files not in My Documents such as
outlook pst files etc.
4] You end up with the user operating as normal but a second backup of every
file in the users My Documents directory stored on the XP server. If you
then back up the XP you have 3 copies of everything.
 
Another op[tion is to have each user save thier files on the local
machines. Then using a backup program create a backup file that
backups all the computers at the same time. Granted this is not what
you asked and requires all four machines to be on (harder to automate
backups) but requires less training of users. I myself haven't had
much luck getting training my wife and kids.
 
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