Solving the mystery: How to keep your devices in sync

So you’ve just picked up a new digital music player, Windows Mobile smartphone, or computer running Windows Vista. Congratulations! Now comes the challenging part: how do you keep your address books, music, e‑mail messages, and other important files stored on these devices in sync?

As the number of digital devices and computers in our lives proliferate, it gets harder to keep them synchronized. Luckily, Windows Vista offers many ways to help. Which one is best? It often depends on which device you're using with your computer. Here's a brief introduction to the choices available to you.

Sync Center is where it all begins

Windows Vista comes with a feature called Sync Center that's designed to keep track of information on your various digital devices. Sync Center gives you the big picture: it shows you which devices you've plugged into your computer, when the information on these devices was last synchronized, and whether the synchronization was successful.

Open Sync Center by clicking the Start button , clicking All Programs, clicking Accessories, and then clicking Sync Center.

When you plug in a portable music player, mobile phone, USB flash drive, or similar device, it should show up in Sync Center automatically as a new sync partnership.

If it doesn't, you might have to set up this relationship manually, which you can do by clicking Set up new sync partnerships.

Note that it's up to individual manufacturers to make a device compatible with Sync Center. Most devices are compatible, but you might encounter some that don't allow you to create a sync partnership. For more information about Sync Center, see How to keep your information in sync.

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Smartphones, music players, and more

Sync Center serves as a convenient way to track the devices you regularly coordinate with Windows, but it might not be the feature you choose to use to sync. Some devices you buy will come with software to perform that task, or rely on other Windows applications.

Portable music players, for example, often synchronize the music files stored on your computer using applications such as Apple iTunes or Windows Media Player. For more information, see Windows Media Player sync: frequently asked questions.

To sync a Windows Mobile device with your computer, you must install the Windows Mobile Device Center.

The Windows Mobile Device Center is designed for smartphones and other handheld devices running Windows Mobile 2003 or later. It replaces ActiveSync, a technology used in Windows XP.

Windows Mobile Device Center offers more features than ActiveSync, as you'll discover if your smartphone is running Windows Mobile 6, the newest Microsoft operating system for mobile devices. For example, Windows Mobile Device Center is designed to manage multimedia files, such as digital photos and music, something ActiveSync didn't do.

Once you've set up Windows Mobile Device Center, the sync results will appear in Sync Center.

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Computer-to-computer sync

Windows Vista offers several ways to keep information synchronized between your computer and your devices. The one thing it can't do, however, is sync files and folders between computers.

Fortunately, Microsoft has created a program called SyncToy to fill the gap. SyncToy makes it easy to keep files and folders synchronized between one or more computers. Best of all: you can download SyncToy for free from the Microsoft website.

Why would you want to sync between computers? Plenty of reasons.

Maybe you put all your music or picture files on your desktop computer, but you also want access to them on your mobile PC when you're away from home. Or perhaps you want your website favorites list on your desktop computer to be on your mobile PC, too. Many people also use SyncToy to back up important files by having a copy automatically sent to another computer.

SyncToy makes it a snap to do all this and more.

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