We use shared systems in my office and there’s no guarantee that one person might have to log in at the beginning of the day. While it’s not every day that a person may have to use another computer, once that happens, transferring all the data from one computer to another is a dealbreaker and a using a USB drive is a violation of the compliance policy.
We used a custom tool provided by the organization that functions like Dropbox, but it takes a long time to compress files, upload and download using the internet. Seeing this data wreak havoc almost on a daily basis, I decided to come up with a solution to ease file transfers between computers.
Now for some background we have a desktop that is used to collect and monitor data about the entire team and it never shuts down. My idea was to run an FTP Server on it and then create folders for each of us, which can be easily accessed by any connected computer. So let’s see how we can configure any Windows folder as an FTP repository using a free application called FileZilla.
Host the folder as an FTP server
Install the program with default settings. If you do not want to automatically start the FileZilla server on your computer, make the necessary selections while installing the application. Select the Install as service option, starting with Windows. This will be the ideal choice if you want the process to run all the time, even if the computer restarts at any time. Once the installation is complete, run the application to create the repository.
click menu editing on FileZilla and click user. Now in account settings click Add to add a user profile and give it a password. This username and password will be used for authentication when you connect to the FTP server from another computer.
Having done that, click options Shared folder and add a folder you want to share as an FTP server. Finally, grant all the permissions you want to files and folders when accessed from the remote computer and save the settings.
That’s all – your FTP server is now located and you can use it from any computer connected to the same network. To open the FTP folder, open the Run box and type the command FTP://
View FTP folders in Windows Explorer
Now, when accessing the FTP folder from another computer, you will have to enter the address in the address bar of Windows Explorer. However, when you open the shared repository, it opens in Internet Explorer. While you can easily download files in the IE view of the FTP repository, it does not allow you to upload files. And when there are many files and folders that we need to transfer, a simple copy/paste is all we look for.
So to enable explorer view on FTP, open Internet Explorer and click Tools -> Internet Options. Here, navigate to High level tab and check option Enable FTP folder view (outside of Internet Explorer). That is all. You can then view FTP files and folders in Windows Explorer and use simple copy and paste commands to back up and restore files to and from your computer.
Note: You can increase the security of FTP by manually configuring the port in addition to using the default configured port of 21.
Conclusion
This trick can be used to share files between computers when multiple computers are connected to the same network. But wait, because that’s not all! Stay tuned and I’ll show you how to combine this trick with an Android app for unlimited, real-time file sync between Windows and Android.
Top image source: DBreg2007
Categories: How to
Source: thpttranhungdao.edu.vn/en/
