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Question

Cloning Question

Apr 19, 2018 11:18AM PDT

My boss has 2 Surface Pros that run Windows 10. He wants to be able to swap between the two at any given moment and have everything synced. I can clone the main one, but that will only give me a snapshot of that point and time. I looked at the sync option under 10, but that only syncs so many things. What would be the best way for me to go about making these two Surfaces mirror each other and sync on a regular basis? I do have a file server I can work with to store the clone, but would still need to get it to update between the two. Thank you in advance.

Discussion is locked

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Answer
This is not well implemented today.
Apr 19, 2018 11:29AM PDT

That is, such a request has been made for decades and not much progress made to have this be seamless. That is, sync on login can be done with scripts you write but at no point would I use cloning as that would cause a huge delay as the clone occurs and restores.

Since you are the IT staff here I will share the advanced method to achieve such a sync.
https://www.howtogeek.com/175008/the-non-beginners-guide-to-syncing-data-with-rsync/

Now you sync what you want on login and on a schedule plus on log out.

It's technical but possible.

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Thank you
Apr 20, 2018 8:06AM PDT

This is a bit advanced for me, but I'll wade in and give it a try. Just might take me a while to know if it works or not while I figure out the details. I'll start with my own machine before I go wild on other people's computers.

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I would be remiss if I didn't mention Microsoft and Apple
Apr 20, 2018 8:13AM PDT

Microsoft, Apple, Google and who else do have ideas about this area but I find many push back when it comes to the giants and how they view sync.

For example we always test stuff with our Chromebook and it's cool how you can go from machine to machine and it follows you around. Microsoft has such an idea with their Office 365, Windows 10 with Email logins and Apple with their own ecosystem.

But this usually gets folk all in a tizzy about their files being up in Apple, Google or Microsoft servers.
So I'll stick to the rsync for this round.

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Answer
Well the easiest way to do this
Apr 23, 2018 5:15AM PDT

is to save your files to the cloud **** Google Drive or Onedrive. Doing this the files you work with are updated in the cloud and not on any of the PC's. Also having a network with a dedicated file server to store the files.