The USB connection allows to transfer files between two computers
over a special USB cable. This cable can be found in online shops under the name
"Windows Easy Transfer Cable". It supports a transfer rate of up to 20
Megabytes/sec, depending on the speed of the PCs and virus scanners. The
function cannot be used to create a network (you need network cards and network
cabling for that) but instead it is a fast and simple way to copy, move,
synchronize etc. data between two computers.
Important safety instructions - please read:
You need a special cable for the USB cable connection! This
cable has a small device in the middle which forwards the data from one computer
to the other! Normal USB cables will NOT work, and could damage the USB port(s)
if you connect them to your computers!
Starting the USB connection
1. Start Total Commander on both machines.
You only need 1 licence if you are the only user.
2. On both machines, select 'Net' - 'PORT
connection to other PC'.
3. One machine will act as a server, and
one as a client. You will be working on the client, while Total Commander cannot
be used on the server during the connection. Therefore select 'Server' on one
machine, and 'Client' on the other.
4. If your computer also has one or more
parallel ports, Total Commander will ask for the port which you want to use.
Choose the USB port.
5. The connection is now established. It
works similar to an FTP connection, i.e. you can now upload, download, delete,
rename, view, and edit files, but not execute programs. Furthermore, you can use
'Synchronize Dirs'.
6. Close the connection on the client
(Disconnect) and server (Abort).
You can also start a port connection using a command in the
button bar, start menu, or Ctrl+D menu (client only):
The command would be
cd port://usb/c:/subdir1/subdir2
Important: Subdirectories must be separated by forward slashes
"/"! The reason is that Total Commander internally uses the FTP functions for
the connection.
To start Total Commander automatically when the cable is plugged
in, you can run the program TcUsbRun.exe (as administrator on Windows Vista/7).
The small tool then registers itself for USB cable insert notifications, and
allows to run Total Commander either as Client or as Server.
Only special cables will work!
This function will only work with cables sold as "Windows Easy
Transfer Cable". It will not work with cables which promise an easy
transfer without the need to install a driver! Such cables use proprietary,
undocumented drivers which Total Commander cannot use. The Windows Easy Transfer
Mode, for which the 'good' cables were originally created, is meant to migrate
from Windows XP to Windows Vista or Windows 7. It uses a cable where Microsoft
supports a fully documented and user-accessible driver (WinUSB).
See www.ghisler.com/cables for a list of supported USB
transfer cables and a download link for the driver.
Supported Windows versions
The USB connection works with any combination Windows XP, Windows
Vista and Windows 7, both 32 bit and 64 bit (Note: The 32-bit winusb.dll file
needed for 32-bit Total Commander isn't installed by default on XP64, see the
above link for more information). You need to install a driver on XP, but Vista
and 7 already include the driver and work directly. Unfortunately it's
impossible to support older Windows versions because the Easy Transfer driver
doesn't work on them.
