Sharing VNCScan Data worldwide Using Dropbox.com

Posted on by admin

Overview

I just wanted to put up a quick blog post to share a cool new way that I’ve found to share VNCScan data among multiple computers.  Dropbox.com is an online storage service.  Their free accounts give you 2GB of disk space.  They have a great Windows desktop client that mounts that storage under your “My DocumentsMy Dropbox” in Windows Explorer.

Any data written to that folder is synchronized with the online storage; which is then synchronized on any other computer that has the client installed.

As with any big change, test this out in a lab environment before committing to this in a live scenario.

How It’s Done

1. Sign up for a free account at http://www.dropbox.com

2. Download and install the dropbox tool for Windows https://www.dropbox.com/install

3. Copy your “My DocumentsVNCScan” folder to the Dropbox folder (usually "My DocumentsMyDropbox")

4. Open VNCScan

5. Click Preferences in the toolbar

6. Choose “Support Files”

7. Change the location of the VNCScan data to the new location of the VNCScan folder

8. Choose NO to the prompt to move the data (you’ve already copied it)

9. Choose OK

10. Close VNCScan, then open it again

* Do steps all steps except for #3 on each computer that you want to share the same data with.

Key Points

  • This solution is free
  • This solution requires the latest version of VNCScan to function properly
  • Each computer must log onto dropbox using the same username/password
  • The dropbox folder location should be the same on each computer
  • We’ve only tested this with up to 10 computers. If you’re using more, back up often.  Let us know your level of success in the comments!
  • You may want to go into the Dropbox client preferences and turn off notifications. They can get annoying really fast.
  • LJ

    I don't think you would have to all use the same Dropbox account. You would simply have to share a folder among all the users Dropbox accounts.

  • sbostedor

    You're probably right. I'll test that scenario out and report back.

  • Brakk

    I use this teknique for other apps like syncing passwords in keypass (though i've since moved to lastpass) and dropping files into a folder that's monitored on another computer to perform some action. Lifehacker did an article on several tricks like this.

    I didn't like the 2 gb limit of dropbox and I didn't really need the online storage, so I'm doing the same with windows live sync. It works the same way as dropbox, but doesn't give you the online storage and there is no size limit.

  • Cjanelle

    Our network.xml file just shot up to 28.3G. I just upgraded to the latest version of VNCScan, and we are using Dropbox. Of course Dropbox is complaining because now we’re way over the free limite. I am not sure how to remedy this situation. I’m not really sure what’s causing it. The file is so big I can’t open it…