SolarSys Notebook Shadow

Quick Start Guide

Notebook Shadow Overview
SolarSys Notebook Shadow is a fast, fully automated, file synchronisation and backup system for notebook PCs working with both LAN and remote network connections. It has been specifically designed to give you complete control of your files on your notebook PC, on your office servers and on your backup devices such as Zip drives and optical discs. SolarSys Notebook Shadow operates in the background and is used to: Automatically synchronize work produced away from the office with copies on one or more office servers; Retrieve work done by other staff and acquire the latest corporate information whenever a connection is made; Backup automatically as you work to many of the external storage devices available in the market.

Default Shadow Folder
Enter the  drive and folder you want to synchronise or backup to by default. Note this can be overridden for each 'Shadow spec line' (see /d option).
The default shadow folder can be on any drive available to you including your c: drive, network drives, removable disks, re-writable CD ROM drives etc.
For example: If your server is drive h: then a good shadow folder would be h:\Shadow
Hint: If you use a removable disk such as a Zip drive then use this as your default because you can then use volume names to distinguish between multiple disks.

Files to Shadow: (Shadow Set)
Define the data you want to synchronise and/or backup. The Shadow Set comprises a number of lines where each line represents a file or set of files within a folder structure that you wish to backup.
Use the 'Spec Builder' as this makes it easy to build up your shadow set.

Spec Builder
Browse to locate your 'Path and file specification' or drag and drop from Explorer.

Use "/s" to include all sub folders.
Use "/d" to specify a different shadow folder to the default.
This is useful when you want to synchronise your files with a number of different destinations e.g. several office servers. It also lets you control the shadow folder structure rather than having Notebook Shadow replicate the full folder structure of the source files.

Avoid /c, '/c>dd/mm/yy', /t, '/t=hh:mm', /w, /v, /x, /m and /n until you have read the full help text.
(Use the ? on the Spec Builder to read the help text for these switches)

You can accept the default shadow mode (see below) or override it on a shadow spec line.
Use "1 Way Backup" for backing up and "2 Way Transfer" for synchronising files between the shadow set and the default shadow folder (or alternative /d).
Please read the full help to utilise the 2 way briefcase facility.

Excluding:
Construct a list of file extensions that you do not want shadowed. Windows applications often create temporary work files which this feature is designed to filter out. You can use the * wildcard.

Max size Mb:
To prevent large files from being shadowed use the Max size Mb field and check box.
You can override this default maximum size on individual lines by using the /m control switch.

Default Shadow Mode:
The different modes are described in the Spec Builder section above. Select the mode you wish to use as the default.

Start Button:
Press the Start Timer button to initiate the shadow process.
The default shadow folder needs to be prepared for shadowing prior to first use. The preparation process simply creates a Shadow.ini file.
Your shadow set will then be validated and on your acceptance, shadowing will start.

You should now have a valid Notebook Shadow configuration and be synchronising and backing up your work successfully. When you have some time, try out some of the advanced features like excluding files and maintaining multiple versions of files. When you are testing your configuration you may find it useful to temporarily disable one or more Shadow Spec lines. To do this simply add /r to the start of the line you wish to disable and that line will be treated as a remark or comment and excluded from the shadow run. Remove the /r at any time to reactivate the disabled lines again.

The development team at SolarSys hope you enjoy many trouble free years using Notebook Shadow.
Look out for upgrades posted on our web site at www.solarsys.co.uk