Hands on: Share folders and libraries

From here, for example, you can create one or more personal libraries, either by choosing an existing folder on one of your client PCs, or by creating a new one.

It’s important, however, to understand the mechanism involved as, despite creating what appears to be a library on the server, the data transfers needed to synchronise the contents are made peer-to-peer.

Make a change to a file in a folder connected to one of your libraries and it will be replicated directly to the same file in similarly connected folders on other client PCs.

Nothing is held on the Foldershare server, which has a number of implications. Where files are being constantly updated, for example, Foldershare could generate a lot of unnecessary traffic.

You could also run into update conflicts, especially if the files are used by other applications, in which case the use of folders dedicated to holding documents for sharing is arguably the best approach.

It can also help with management as, with careful naming, you can make it clear that a folder has been associated with a Foldershare library rather than, say, using My Documents or other folders commonly used for other purposes.

Sharing libraries
To access personal libraries from different clients, you need to give them access via the website then log on with the same Foldershare username (your email address) on each one. In addition, however, you can also opt to share libraries with other users.

Shared libraries are created and accessed in the same way as personal ones, by associating a folder on a client with a library on the Foldershare server. You then ‘invite’ other Foldershare users to connect to the library, and their client displays a pop-up to let them know what you’ve done.

You also get a choice of access permissions depending on what you want invited users to be able to do. Readers, for example, can only view files while Contributors can only add new ones. Editors can view, add, change and delete content while Senior Editors are also allowed to change library permissions.

Finally, it’s possible to remotely browse the complete file system on any of your clients from any internet-connected PC. All that’s needed is to log on via the Foldershare website and any of your online clients will be accessible.

Performance will depend on the internet connections involved, but it’s usually good. However, all you’ll see will be the local file system, with no access to network storage even where it’s mapped to a local drive letter.

Hidden system files can’t be seen either, unless the appropriate change is made on the client PC, and there are no facilities to run applications remotely. For that you’ll need separate remote-control software or a hosted service designed to provide the facility.

Local control
And that’s about it. For the most part, you manage everything to do with Foldershare via the website. However, the client taskbar applet does provide some local management and troubleshooting facilities.

From its pop-up menu, for example, you can open the folders connected to Foldershare libraries directly, rather than having to navigate to them by other means. There’s also a link to the Foldershare website, a status/activity monitor and a trash folder where any deleted files will be copied, in case you want to recover them.

A settings editor is another option and allows you, for example, to change any proxy server settings you might have and the way the Foldershare client works with Nat (network address translation) firewalls, although it doesn’t usually have any problems in this area.

You can also turn logging on or off and limit the size of the log files produced. I normally turn it off as the information in these files isn’t particularly intelligible.

Foldershare limitations
Despite its recent refresh, Foldershare is still classed as a beta service. That means you can’t expect to get much in the way of official Microsoft support, although an online forum and a few developer blogs are available if you’re prepared to poke around a bit.

There’s no guarantee of availability ­ Foldershare suffered an infamous two-week outage in December last year plus a shorter, 24-hour break for “improvements” while I was writing this column. Other than that, it’s normally reliable, so don’t let the beta label put you off too much.

You’re also limited to synchronising a maximum of 10 folders, each containing up to 10,000 files, which can themselves be up to 2GB. Those are pretty big limits and there are no restrictions in terms of the type of file that can be synchronised so, again, this shouldn’t be an issue.

Neither should platform support, although Windows 2000 has been dropped, so the updated service is only available to PCs running XP, Vista or Server 2003, plus Apple Macs running OSX 10.3.8 or later.

There are, however, things you can’t do with Foldershare that you can with alternative peer-to-peer folder-sharing products. One of the most often cited is the ability to synchronise or back up files to an online data store, which means leaving at least one PC on and connected to the internet to keep files up to date at all times.

Microsoft’s solution would be to use Windows Live Skydrive to store files online. Up to 5GB of space is available free with this service, but there are no synchronisation facilities, so you’d need to use this as well as Foldershare for a complete solution, which is far from perfect.

Alternatively, you might consider subscribing to Office Live Workspace, another free service that, as well providing online storage and synchronisation of general files and folders, also allows you to synchronise Outlook data.

Unfortunately, Office Live Workspace is another beta Microsoft service, but Powerfolder, for instance, is an open-source utility that is available for Linux, Windows and Apple Mac platforms. It’s not free (a single licence costs a one-off €29, about £23), but as well as peer-to-peer synchronisation you get 5GB of online storage and scheduled backup facilities.

Others worth investigating include Be In Sync, another chargeable service, and Allway Sync, which is available free, albeit with some limits on what it will do. You could also consider Microsoft Office Groove 2007, although you’re then starting to get into workgroup collaboration ­ a different ball game altogether.