How To Use Windows Briefcase

The Windows Briefcase was introduced in Windows 95 and was the Dropbox of its 24-hour interval. Information technology's still part of Windows 7, but was deprecated in Windows eight and is no longer part of Windows x.

The Briefcase Was All Nigh Syncing Files

If yous're onetime enough, you've probably seen a "My Briefcase" icon on a PC's desktop at some point, even if y'all've never used the Windows Briefcase.

The Windows Briefcase was designed to make synchronizing files easier in the days earlier solid Internet connections. For example, y'all might use it to take essential files from your workplace home on a floppy deejay. Or, you might synchronize files from your workplace's local network to your laptop earlier you disconnect.

It wasn't merely about copying files back and forth, which you lot can do just with copy and paste. The briefcase was all about keeping those files synchronized. If you lot edited the copy of the files in the briefcase, you could then synchronize them back to the original location. Or, if y'all had copies of some files in the briefcase and the files were updated at the original location, you lot could synchronize the Briefcase, updating the briefcase copies to friction match the originals.

How the Briefcase Worked

Here'south how y'all would've used the Briefcase:

First, you'd store the briefcase on a device that travels with you. For example, if you had a laptop, you could keep the briefcase anywhere on your laptop. If you had a desktop PC, you lot could place the briefcase on a floppy deejay and take that floppy disk habitation with yous.

You lot could either motion the My Briefcase object from the desktop to your floppy deejay or right-click in any binder and select New > Briefcase to make a new one.

You'd elevate any important files y'all wanted to take with yous into the Briefcase. For example, if yous had important documents stored on your workplace'south network file server, you could drag those onto the briefcase on your laptop. Or, if you lot had some files you were using on on your workplace's desktop PC, you could elevate them into the briefcase on your floppy disk.

You could also drag entire folders to the briefcase and Windows would synchronize those folders.

Now, y'all could disconnect your laptop from the network or remove the floppy disk and take it to another PC. The briefcase on the laptop or floppy deejay independent copies of whatever files you put into the briefcase. You could view them offline and even make changes. You just opened the briefcase and and so opened the files inside.

Windows treated briefcases like practically any other folder. You lot could open a file directly from the briefcase and save information technology directly to the briefcase.

Later on, you would go back to work and connect your laptop to the workplace'south local surface area network or insert the floppy disk into the desktop reckoner. To synchronize changes, y'all'd open up the Briefcase and click the "Update All" button on the toolbar. Any changes would exist synchronized. For case, if you lot'd edited the files in the briefcase, your changes would be synchronized back to the file's original locations. If the files on your workplace's network had changed, the copies in your briefcase would exist updated.

You lot could as well utilise the "Update Selected" button to update only a few files. And, whichever way you did information technology, you'd be prompted to choose which files yous wanted to update, so there were no mistakes.

Unlike Dropbox, you couldn't synchronize files on several unlike PCs with the briefcase. The contents of a briefcase could simply exist synchronized with one location—that'south it. So, while you were away from your workplace, the idea was to merely work with the files stored in the briefcase and not drag them out of the briefcase or endeavour to sync them elsewhere.

What Happened to the Briefcase?

The Windows Briefcase was dandy when it was introduced in Windows 95, but information technology became less and less important every bit time went on. Despite this, the Briefcase was even so part of Windows XP, Windows Vista, and Windows seven. Information technology was considered "deprecated" in Windows 8. The Windows Briefcase was disabled in the original release of Windows x, and could simply be enabled with a subconscious registry setting. Information technology was removed completely with the release of the Creators Update.

Ultimately, the Briefcase became much less important thanks to the Internet. With admission to loftier-speed Internet connectivity practically everywhere, there's usually no need to go on offline copies of files and synchronize them. Even if you need network file shares, you can connect to your workplace'due south network from anywhere via a VPN.

The Briefcase has as well been completely replaced by services similar Dropbox, Microsoft OneDrive, and Google Drive. Similar the Windows Briefcase, these services synchronize copies of your files between your computers. So, even if y'all're offline, you lot can have offline admission to your files, and they'll synchronize when you go back online.

Unlike a briefcase, these services let you synchronize files to multiple different computers. All the synchronizing happens automatically, likewise. There's no need to click an "Update All" button to manually apply changes. The Windows Briefcase is now erstwhile-fashioned.

Source: https://www.howtogeek.com/396628/what-was-the-windows-briefcase-used-for-anyway/

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