Winmerge
Here's a handy - and free (it's Open Source)! - utility that can save you lots of time. It's called WinMerge, and its creators describe it as a "differencing and merging tool" for Windows.
Let's say you have a folder on your C (or main, internal) drive where you store your music. You also back up this music to an external drive for safekeeping. If you run an auto backup, you're probably all set. I don't, though, so every time I add music to my C drive, I would need to also copy each file to my external drive. Rather than do that, every so often I run WinMerge.
To use the utility, you simply open a new project, then select a "right" folder and a "left" folder; in this case, I am opening my Music folder on my C drive, and on my external drive. Then I tell WinMerge to compare. After a short time working, it will return the results to me, indicating where there are differences between the two folders, and allowing me to copy from right to left, or left to right, depending on where a file may be missing. It will also indicate to me if I have two files with the same name, but with different binaries (indicating, in this case, that I have two versions of the same song).
It really is just that simple.
WinMerge can also compare two files. Let's say that you have two versions of a Word document; WinMerge can compare the two and point out where the two are different, allowing you to update both files so that they match, or selecting the version that you wish to use, based on the differences in the two files, without having to painstakingly compare the documents word by word.
It goes without saying that WinMerge can be very useful for collaborative projects in which it's easy to lose control of versioning; with WinMerge, it's easy to compare versions, discover the differences, and select the latest and greatest version. In fact, WinMerge will literally compare dates on files, so that you're always sure when each file was updated last.
It's free, it's easy to use, and it's a useful tool for anyone's utility arsenal. Get it at www.winmerge.org.
Let's say you have a folder on your C (or main, internal) drive where you store your music. You also back up this music to an external drive for safekeeping. If you run an auto backup, you're probably all set. I don't, though, so every time I add music to my C drive, I would need to also copy each file to my external drive. Rather than do that, every so often I run WinMerge.
To use the utility, you simply open a new project, then select a "right" folder and a "left" folder; in this case, I am opening my Music folder on my C drive, and on my external drive. Then I tell WinMerge to compare. After a short time working, it will return the results to me, indicating where there are differences between the two folders, and allowing me to copy from right to left, or left to right, depending on where a file may be missing. It will also indicate to me if I have two files with the same name, but with different binaries (indicating, in this case, that I have two versions of the same song).
It really is just that simple.
WinMerge can also compare two files. Let's say that you have two versions of a Word document; WinMerge can compare the two and point out where the two are different, allowing you to update both files so that they match, or selecting the version that you wish to use, based on the differences in the two files, without having to painstakingly compare the documents word by word.
It goes without saying that WinMerge can be very useful for collaborative projects in which it's easy to lose control of versioning; with WinMerge, it's easy to compare versions, discover the differences, and select the latest and greatest version. In fact, WinMerge will literally compare dates on files, so that you're always sure when each file was updated last.
It's free, it's easy to use, and it's a useful tool for anyone's utility arsenal. Get it at www.winmerge.org.
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