Samsung Kies is a

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used to communicate between

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operating systems, and recently manufactured

Samsung The Samsung Group (or simply Samsung) ( ko, 삼성 ) is a South Korean multinational manufacturing conglomerate headquartered in Samsung Town, Seoul, South Korea. It comprises numerous affiliated businesses, most of them united under the ...

mobile phone and

tablet computer A tablet computer, commonly shortened to tablet, is a mobile device, typically with a mobile operating system and touchscreen display processing circuitry, and a rechargeable battery in a single, thin and flat package. Tablets, being com ...

devices, usually using a

USB Universal Serial Bus (USB) is an industry standard that establishes specifications for cables, connectors and protocols for connection, communication and power supply (interfacing) between computers, peripherals and other computers. A broad ...

connection (though

wireless LAN A wireless LAN (WLAN) is a wireless computer network that links two or more devices using wireless communication to form a local area network (LAN) within a limited area such as a home, school, computer laboratory, campus, or office buildi ...

Kies connectivity is now possible using some devices). Samsung has released new software to replace Kies, named Samsung Smart Switch, which is mainly directed at migrating customers onto new Samsung devices. The name K.I.E.S. originated as an acronym for "Key Intuitive Easy System". After version 2.0, the name was shortened to "Kies".

Versions

Kies is available in several versions and editions, depending on the specific Samsung device and the OS it is running. Kies (currently in version 2.6.4.20043_5) supports devices with

Android 2.1 Android Eclair is a codename of the Android (operating system), Android mobile operating system developed by Google, the fifth operating system for Android and the second major release of Android. Eclair spans the versions 2.0.x and 2.1. Unveiled ...

through 4.2. Kies3 (version 3.x) supports devices with Android Jelly Bean (4.3 and up). Trying to use Kies with newer devices, or Kies3 with older devices, results in an error message. There is also a Kies Mini version, which is available only for specific devices such as Samsung Captivate, Infuse, or Vibrant. It is used to update these devices' operating systems (OS versions). Though there are both

and Macintosh versions of the full Kies product, there is only a Windows version of Kies Mini for most Samsung devices; however, non-Windows users may overcome this limitation by using a Windows

virtual machine In computing, a virtual machine (VM) is the virtualization/ emulation of a computer system. Virtual machines are based on computer architectures and provide functionality of a physical computer. Their implementations may involve specialized h ...

, installing Kies Mini within it and connecting a Samsung device via USB cable to accomplish the OS update. On Windows devices, the file transfer happens via a

plug-and-play In computing, a plug and play (PnP) device or computer bus is one with a specification that facilitates the recognition of a hardware component in a system without the need for physical device configuration or user intervention in resolving reso ...

mode. Since 2012, Intel processors mounted the

Cache Acceleration Software The Intel Cache Acceleration Software (CAS) is a computer data storage product for solid-state drive (SSD) caching. Description CAS manages using the SSD storage as a cache layer for slower storage data (e.g. spinning hard drives). A cached copy of ...

, which was tuned by system administrators when connected with SSD cards. Although Kies connectivity has traditionally been via mini or micro-USB cable (needing some software, and not plug and play), wireless LAN connectivity between a Samsung device on which the ''Kies Wireless'' Android app is running, and any Windows or Macintosh computer running the Kies full version, is now also possible. The Kies Wireless app also supports wireless connectivity with other devices via the other devices' web browsers. All such connectivity, though, must be via a local

Wi-Fi Wi-Fi () is a family of wireless network protocols, based on the IEEE 802.11 family of standards, which are commonly used for local area networking of devices and Internet access, allowing nearby digital devices to exchange data by radio wav ...

connection (and not via

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2G, 3G, or 4G data networks) wherein all involved devices are on the same Wi-Fi LAN. The full version of Kies may be downloaded from the ''Samsung Global Download Center'' or from the download part of an individual mobile device's technical support web page on the Samsung website. With few exceptions, it is only the Kies Mini version, and not the full version, that is downloadable from a given Samsung device. Smart Switch is part of a technical and commercial strategy finalized to connect all electronics in a unique semi-automation system, which is managed via a smartphone central app of Samsung.

Alternative software

Since 2012, most of the Intel product line mounted the Cache Acceleration Software, both as an accelerator and a temporary database in connection with the parallel subsystem named

Intel Management Engine The Intel Management Engine (ME), also known as the Intel Manageability Engine, is an autonomous subsystem that has been incorporated in virtually all of Intel's processor chipsets since 2008. It is located in the Platform Controller Hub of mo ...

(with ring-3 privilege inside the device). Although

lockstep In the United States, lockstep marching or simply lockstep is marching in a very close single file in such a way that the leg of each person in the file moves in the same way and at the same time as the corresponding leg of the person immediately ...

, simple and oldest

Trivial File Transfer Protocol Trivial File Transfer Protocol (TFTP) is a simple lockstep File Transfer Protocol which allows a client to get a file from or put a file onto a remote host. One of its primary uses is in the early stages of nodes booting from a local area networ ...

was optimized for a client-server network, far different from a one-to-one and

peer-to-peer Peer-to-peer (P2P) computing or networking is a distributed application architecture that partitions tasks or workloads between peers. Peers are equally privileged, equipotent participants in the network. They are said to form a peer-to-peer ...

connection. Android File Transfer for Linux is a

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app, stable since version 2.2., though FOSS has somewhere (e.g. on

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) protected under the copyright law, and subject to file robots.txt

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Versions

Alternative software

System requirements

References

External links