Why doesn’t SyncToy work with Windows Vista?

Software, Windows, Windows Vista 2 Minutes

New rule: Any software Microsoft releases must run on Windows Vista.

You’d think that would be obvious, for a company that has bet the farm on its upcoming upgrade. But apparently some folks haven’t yet gotten the memo. Today’s example is this week’s update to the SyncToy utility:

SyncToy is a free PowerToy for Microsoft Windows XP that provides an easy to use, highly customizable program that helps users to do the heavy lifting involved with the copying, moving, and synchronization of different directories. Most common operations can be performed with just a few clicks of the mouse, and additional customization is available without added complexity. SyncToy can manage multiple sets of folders at the same time; it can combine files from two folders in one case, and mimic renames and deletes in another. Unlike other applications, SyncToy actually keeps track of renames to files and will make sure those changes get carried over to the synchronized folder.

I wrote approvingly about SyncToy when it came out last August. And this release (version 1.2) fixes probably the biggest issue with the original release, which was the inability to use UNC network paths.

But even though this is an unsupported power toy (hosted on Microsoft servers, officially announced via the Microsoft Downloads list), I have to take issue with the team that released it. Why on earth should Microsoft be releasing any utility that doesn’t work with Windows Vista? Yes, I know its official name includes the words “for Windows XP.” But there are plenty of Windows XP-compatible apps that work just fine on Windows Vista. This one doesn’t. And it doesn’t just fail, it fails ugly, with a series of increasingly cryptic error messages that end with the program refusing to run.

Sometime next month, Microsoft is going to release a public beta of Windows Vista that will be installed by hundreds of thousands of people. If they download a six-week-old utility from Microsoft’s website, they should expect it to work. And if Microsoft programmers can’t get it together to think six weeks ahead, how can they expect third-party developers to do so?

Microsoft’s other synchronization utility, FolderShare, works just fine with Vista. Maybe Robert Scoble needs to bring his video camera over to both teams and find out why one group has a clue and the other doesn’t.

Published by Ed Bott

Tech journalist. Author of 25+ books. ZDNET Contributing Editor since 2006. Contact info: https://edbott.com/contact-me/

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12 thoughts on “Why doesn’t SyncToy work with Windows Vista?”

  1. Could it have something to do with the way the .NET infrastructure is implemented in Vista? SyncToy (which I myself use and love) relies on .NET, so there might be some variety of bizarro incompatibility there.

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  3. I havn’t really messed with it but in the vista control pannel sits a sync utility that at a glance seems to the same stuff as the sync power toy…

  4. Griffon,

    You’re thinking about the PC-to-PC Sync utility, I think. Not the same. For starters, it only works between Vista machines, and then only between identical folders in identical user accounts. I’ll have to write something about that.

  5. A workaround: set the “Run this program as an administrator” option on the Compatibility tab for SyncToy.exe.

    SyncToy is pretty useful – so hopefully the developers in Microsoft will have the chance to update it so that it works bettwe with least-privilege.

  6. Hi. Thanks for posting the workaround for running SyncToy on Vista ;).

    We didn’t support Vista in v1.x of SyncToy because Vista was not available to the public when we released.

    We are planning another version of SyncToy for release some time this fall and it will have Vista support (and it won’t require running it as administrator). Our 3 person team is also working on other projects, so thank you for your patience! We’ve been really pleased by the great feedback and good suggestions, and are looking forward to getting v2 out the door.

    ReynaM
    Program Manager
    Microsoft Corp

  7. I’m having trouble getting the Task Scheduler to work with Synctoy in Vista. I have it set to run once a day. It did work for about a week,, then stopped working a few days ago. I did not change anything to make it stop working, but now I can’t get it to work again. I never had it in Administrative mode until I read this post today. I also see under the General table in TS, a option to “Configure for” Vista or XP. I’ve tried all the combinations, but I still can’t get it to work.

    If anyone has it working as of 6/28/06 or after, please let me know your settings. Thanks.

  8. SyncToy requires .NET 1.2, SyncToy does however NOT accept .NET 2.0 which is what MSs provides right now.

    Sloppy, MS!

  11. Ozzie – how right you are. Have read about disabling .NET 3 and going back to 1.1 and then 2 but this does not work in 64 bit Vista. Shame – I love sync toy!

  12. First, my english is not so good.

    I have a solution for using synctoy in windows vista 64bit.
    I installed vista over XP. then i get the map, called: WindowsOld
    If i go too that folder, and i click on the synctoy that was installed on my xp system, then synctoy will start.

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