Hiding Microsoft SyncToyCmd.exe For Task Scheduler Purposes

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Now that I own a laptop, I needed a way to keep some folders in sync between my two computers (my web development folder for example). While there are plenty of options that use online methods (Dropbox for example), I needed one that was strictly offline. The free accounts only offer a few gigabytes (I’ll eventually be syncing a few hundred gigabytes and am currently syncing around 30,000 files) and I’m much too cheap to purchase space upgrades (they’re crazy expensive anyway).

So in comes SyncToy 2.0 from Microsoft. I installed it on my desktop (you only need it on one computer), shared the folders with my Homegroup on my laptop that I wanted to sync, and set up some folder pairs. It works awesome and only takes about a minute to check both my desktop and laptop (via wireless) for file modifications and then sync the changes.

However it has no UI for setting up automated syncing. You either have to do it manually or set up a scheduled task using the command line program that comes with SyncToy called SyncToyCmd.exe. The problem with there’s no way to hide it’s window. Every time the task runs, a command line window pops up while it’s syncing. Highly annoying and distracting, even if I’m only syncing once an hour.

Well thanks to a bit of Googling, I found a solution. It’s a little NET application someone wrote that acts as a wrapper for SyncToyCmd.exe and makes it run silently in the background.

Success! 🙂

3 thoughts on “Hiding Microsoft SyncToyCmd.exe For Task Scheduler Purposes”

  1. If you ever need to do this for other command-prompt windows, here are two good apps:

    http://www.commandline.co.uk/cmdow/

    I’ve used CMDOW a few times to hide windows opened from batch files (in XP) and it works well.

    http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/nircmd.html

    NirCmd is the other one. It has a command, execmd, that executes commands without opening windows. I’ve never used it for this, but I use it for some other stuff and it is a very convenient tool.

    Cheers!

  3. hiding the command window when using synctoycmd could be via this method http://social.microsoft.com/Forums/uk/synctoy/thread/1347def0-e3a7-42d6-8d0c-a14edab999be
    anyusername wrote:
    “To avoid the taskeng.exe window from popping up ever time the scheduler runs SyncToyCmd, I use a script. I created the following script in notepad and then saved is as SyncToy.vbs and then get Task Scheduler to run that instead:

    ‘ SyncToy Scheduler
    Set WshShell = WScript.CreateObject(“WScript.Shell”)
    WshShell.Run “””C:Program FilesSyncToy 2.1SyncToyCmd.exe”” -R” ,7

    The ‘,7? will start the taskeng.exe window minimised, to hide the window completely it can be changed to ‘,0? ”

    Not tried it myself as i just redirect the output to a file so the command window and pops up and disappears again. synctoycmd.exe -R > d:syncLog.txt
    (or use >> to append to the log)

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