Sync on drive insertion?

[Ogobetse]

Our business is interested in giving managers a USB key with important Disaster Recovery information. This information will be updated regularly and must be pushed out to these USB keys.

Is there any way to get ViceVersa to sync automatically when the user inserts his/her USB key?

I understand the implications of this, but this role is the only thing the USB keys will be doing.

Thanks!

Dave

[CoreyPlover]

Short answer...maybe.

For USB Hard drives the answer is "Yes" coz I actually achieved exactly that (insert a particular USB hard drive and it automatically runs the backups).

For USB keys, Windows XP may have an overriding security feature that prevents removable media from Auto-running anything. I will step you through getting a USB external drive to auto sync and you can see if it works for an USB key as well.

1. Apologies coz this is just from memory

2. You will need the Microsoft TweakUI Powertoy (download from www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/downloads/powertoys/xppowertoys.mspx)

3. Install and run TweakUI. Under Tweak UI, My Computer, Autoplay, Drives (Enable Autoplay on the drive letter of your USB device) also Types (ensure that Autoplay on removable drives is checked)

4. Under Handlers, click Create. You than want to create an Autoplay.bat handlers that runs Autoplay.bat through CMD.EXE (unsure exactly, I set this up on a client computer. I can check exact details and repost). You want to then force this Autoplay handler to run regardless of the media inserted (you can do this when Autoplay launches for the first time, or by selecting all Supported Media checkboxes)

5. On the USB media, create an autoplay.bat file. Inside this BAT file you can tell it to run "ViceVersa.exe <filname.fsf> /dialogautosync /autoclose" if you wish to perform a specific synchronisation, or construct your own BAT file (VBS file also should work, but you may have to change the CMD.EXE to something else to execute the VBS script)

If all has gone well, you should see Microsoft Window's autoplay feature pop up when a new USB drive is added. It scans the contents of the drive and then says "What would you like to do. View the photos? Open explorer? Play the CD? etc" There should be an option to "Run Autoplay.bat". When you select that one (and choose "Don't ask me again") ViceVersa auto-sync (or whatever you scripted in the BAT file) should run.

[dekafilm]

Reviving an old thread here, with a request for other uses' tips on the subject:

Currently, I have succeeded in getting a USB hard drive to automatically start a ViceVersa profile upon connection, using a combination of a .BAT file, an autorun.inf file, and a freeware program called AppLoad.exe. The goal is to start a hands-free backup operation that backs up our network disk to the USB drive. So far, this has worked *some* of the time...

Where the joy ends: the drive letter assigned to the USB drive sometimes changes, depending on what else might be attached to the computer at the same time. We also have multiple computers, and it would be more robust to be able to initiate this automated backup from any one of them. I can get around drive letter reassignment on the Windows XP level using the above methods, however...

Not knowing the drive letter ahead of time, I've had to stick to relative paths (e.g.: "\target_folder" instead of "F:\target_folder"). Attempting this, VV Pro 2 is giving me the following error message concerning my source/target pairs:

"target path '\target_folder\' does not contain a drive indication"

My hope was that VV would "virtually insert" the drive letter when called from the drive's location. Note that VV Free did this -- which is less surprising, since VV Free only handled one source / target pair at a time (no ambiguity).

It would be **really great** if VV Pro, which can handle many folder pairs simultaneously, could "discover" the proper drive letter when it encounters an ambiguous file path such as "\localdrive\xyz\" (as opposed to "F:\xyz") and insert the drive letter where needed. Alternatively, perhaps there is a wildcard that can be inserted in the file path when it is first defined (e.g.: "<autorun_drive>\xyz")?

Anyone have a solution for this? Is this a feature in VV Pro 2 I haven't discovered yet? Or is this a feature request in disguise?

Thanks for any help on the subject!

[TGRMN Software]

Unfortunately I do not have any good answer for your problem...
you said you can setup the same drive letter all the times for a specific drive, how comes you say you do not know the drive letter in advance?

Maybe I have some good news ...
We are working on a new VVLauncher (name to be decided yet) which will be able to handle multiple profiles... the initial release will be an engine without GUI which can be configured via XML....

Anyway, we will add a new event exec as soon as source or target is available. We have some details to work out like: once a day as soon as it comes avaiable? Every hour? Every min? What do you recommend?
_________________
--
TGRMN Software Support
http://www.tgrmn.com
http://www.compareandmerge.com

[dekafilm]

Quoting myself: "I can get around drive letter reassignment on the Windows XP level using the above methods, however... "


...Sorry if I was unclear: I meant that *even though* the drive letter may be different each time the drive is inserted, using my methods I can cause Windows XP to run a ViceVersa profile that lives on the inserted drive (rather than on the C: drive of the computer I'm plugging it into). That was necessary to address the case of plugging the backup drive into a computer which did not have the needed ViceVersa profile in the correct location, and also prevents disaster if slightly different profiles live on each computer due to negligence. This way, the profile to use can live with the backup itself.

To answer your second question, I'm thinking it would be best if VV launcher might immediately search the root of any newly assigned drive letter for a profile. That would address both issues: (a) *when* to launch automatically and (b) *what* to launch automatically. You could just add a checkbox to the VVLauncher program that enables this. In case multiple profiles need to be stored for some reason, perhaps a specific filename could trigger an automatic execution of the profile (akin to index.html for web browsers -- something like "autorun.fsf").

You might still have to introduce a wildcard to the profile data structure, however, such that VVPro can substitute a drive letter at the time of a profile's execution when a source or target has a relative path. Or maybe VVPro always substitutes a drive letter for relative paths when the file's name is "autorun.fsf" Not sure which method is more elegant or reliable.

.
.
.

By the way:

A correction: the program that I'm using for autorun is winopen.exe (not appload.exe). I believe this is freeware.


For the curious, here's what I've got going on. In the root of the inserted drive live the following items:

(1) a text file called autorun.inf with the following text as its contents (should be all on one line):

"OPEN=autorun\winopen.exe /min /op:open \autorun\backup_to_this_drive.lnk"

(2) a folder called "autorun" that contains:
- the winopen.exe program
- a ViceVersa Pro profile called "backup_to_this_drive.fsf"
- a windows shortcut called "backup_to_this_drive.lnk" that was created
with in ViceVersa Pro (doing this sets up autocompare switches, et al)
that looks like this when you right-click and select Properties:

"C:\Program Files\ViceVersa Pro 2\ViceVersa.exe" "\autorun\backup_to_this_drive.fsf" /autocompare

(again, all on one line!)

...note that I've removed the drive letter reference in the second set of quotes, which allows the profile on the inserted drive to run no matter what its drive letter (Windows appears to be smart enough to know where the shortcut "came from" when it sees a relative path).

Why the maze of programs and shortcuts? Because (a) Windows' autorun won't launch a profile or a link correctly if used directly (and for some reason I can't associate ViceVersa Pro with the .fsf extension on my installation of Windows XP!), (b) by using a Windows shortcut the "/autocompare" switch can be used to start hands-free backup (the goal of this exercise), and (c) Windows shortcuts appear to be smart enough to substitute a drive letter when they encounter a relative path, as mentioned.

Whew!

Hope that helps somebody!

--DEKA