Backups are always advisable. But it can be a tedious job to back up all of your files and folders each time you make a change. What if it could be automated? Here's a solution that will allow you to back up your critical data in a single click, if not automatically.

Microsoft's SyncToy 2.0 is a small tool that allows you to synchronize folders or backup one folder to a destination folder, locally on your computer or on a USB drive or over the network. This easy-to-use application for Windows XP and Vista helps you copy, move, rename, and delete files between folders and computers.

If you want to backup a folder on your hard disk to another on a USB drive, you just need to create a folder pair--the source folder in the left and destination folder on the USB drive on the right. You will have to choose "Echo" when it asks you what you want to do. This option will make all the changes that take place in the source folder to the destination folder, and not vice versa--creating exact image of the source folder. Whenever you make some changes to your source folder, start SyncToy and hit backup.

If you want to synchronize two folders, say one on your computer and the other on your USB drive or on another computer on the network, choose synchronize.

SyncToy requires .NET framework 3.5 for installation and functioning. You can download both .NET framework and SyncToy 2.0 from Microsoft Download Center. NET framework is a large file (more than 60MB) but worth downloading for enabling folder back ups and synchronization in a ziffy.