Sync Your Favorites Folder

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I long ago gave up trying to keep my external links synced up across multiple computers. A solution like Windows Live Favorites is clearly the way to go for a situation like that. However, it's against most company policies to save a link to an internal site on a public facing website like Windows Live Favorites. So I've been suffering on my multiple computers at work with multiple lists of Favorites. Today I finally sat down and figured out how to keep them all in sync. It's really not that tough. All you need is some sort of network folder which most companies will provide to their employees. Create a folder called Favorites on that share.

For Windows XP:

  • Download and install TweakUI.
  • Run the program and select My Computer > Special Folders from the nav tree.
  • In the Folder drop down box, select Favorites and click Change Location.
  • Select your Favorites folder on your network share.

For Windows Vista:

  • Open Windows Explorer and browse to c:\users\<username>
  • Right click on Favorites and choose Properties.
  • Select the Location tab
  • Click the Move button.
  • Select your Favorites folder on your network share.
  • Vista will ask you if you want to move your files and I recommend that you click Yes.

Now it doesn't matter which of my computers I'm on, I can always access my favorites straight from IE. And if I'm on a computer in a conference room, I can still get to my favorites by manually browsing into my network directory. It's not quite as nice as being able to tag all of my favorites, but it's great having them synchronized over multiple computers without any work.