Microsoft Groove - impressive
 

Part of Office 2007 enterprise on my machine is Microsoft Groove.

I never really paid much attention to it till yesterday.

In essence it's a workgroup collaboration tool letting folks in a group share files, messages and other stuff. And part of it is a folder sharing/syncing tool. You just select a folder, tell it to sync to Groove and you are done. There is no server involved, and no fees (for the first year at least).

Then, on any other machine with Groove you join that group and hey presto; the folders appear. At first I figured it would only work over a LAN (internally) so I connected to my phone over Bluetooth, and it STILL synced the files!

This is awesome, I now have a quick and easy way to have my most important files synced between several machines. Anything I do when on the road is instantly updated to the same folder on my desktop at home.

If you have Office 2007, give it a try, or download their demo:

http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/gr...487641033.aspx

I'm a fan, as well.

My wife and I each have our own notebooks and this has provided a slick way for us to share files. I think I have read its a bit of a resource hog, but we only run it when needed.

Interesting. The demo doesn't cover what happens when multiple people edit the same document - how conflicts are handled.

It also doesn't mention back up - if someone accidentally wipes out important data.

Nor does it discuss security levels - ie if you have a very sensitive document and how you can control distribution as well as secure deletion...

Those are things I'd want to know.

I tried Groove back before the Microsoft days and thought it was pretty cool as well.

Thanks for the lowdown. I've got Office 97 on my home machine, but not my work machine. I guee I'll turn it off until I've got it at work.

It doesn't really have anything that impressive. It's no sharepoint. Just a really simple way of sharing files between machines and over the Internet.

In the past I'd just use some shared folders, but this is much more efficient.

I've been using foldershare (the free version) to do the same thing for years. It's generally felt Microsoft bought Foldershare to let it die so they could roll our the groove tool.

I love it, it's been flawless, and you don't have to install office 07 to use it.

You don't get the collabartion stuff you get with Groove, but it shares files pretty flawlessly if you don't want to go the 07 route.

Reminds me of a decade ago when TGV had NFS for Windows. Then Cisco bought them and killed it. :confused:

The technology is positively ancient, but it's nice to see people still using it.

I just started using it at work recently. It's certianly much mroe feature rich than folder share assuming you use functionality outside of the file sharing.

As far as conflict detection I looked for a checkin/out type thing ala Sharepoint but could't find it. If two people save at the same time it will have file.doc and file (brian).doc, for example.

It will also sync the contents with a Sharepoint site too which is handy.

That makes the rather large leap that sharepoint is anything to write home about :p.

Groove has been the bane of my existence for the last six months. The previous version had a web client and offered some sharepoint-like features (message boards, to-dos, etc.) so we got everyone in four countries on this thing and the new 2007 only syncs files, and then only sometimes. I guess it's OK since it's free, but for me it was a big letdown.

Foldershare is still there and still free. Other than the MS logo at the very bottom of the web page, I haven't seen any changes.

Groove does do simple folder sync like Foldershare, and if that is all you need, use FolderShare.

Groove is an enterprise class collab tool and does much more than Foldershare. Comparing the two is like comparing a skate board to a Mercedes. Both have wheels and will get you places, but the Benz can carry passengers, has leather, heated seats, goes faster, and has air conditioning...

My Groove 2007 client has Message boards, to-dos, meetings, file sync, etc. I think you need the Groove Enterprise Server for the web client but I have no idea. I just leave the thick client running in the tray of my machine.

SharePoint is one of those things that does some good stuff out of the box but IMO it isn't really good unless you have someone who knows the product on the backend designing your deployment properly. I have been this person before (both the consumer in the vanilla install and the architect) and personally I am pretty fond of SharePoint from an information worker perspective. From the backend administrative perspective it's a different story IMO.

If you haven't used WSS v3/Sharepoint 2007 yet there are quite a few cool new features.

Agree with the other poster. 2007 does a lot more than just sync files.