Windows File Copying

Windows' GUI file copy sucks. This is apparent when trying to copy a large group of nested files and directories from one drive to another. If the process encounters an error copying any file, the whole copy stops.

I use XXCOPY instead.

Install XXCOPY

If XXCOPY is not already installed on the computer, follow these steps:

1. Download XXCOPY
2. Unpack the zip archive
3. Create a directory named c:\bin
4. Copy xxcopy.exe from the archive into c:\bin
5. Create/append c:\bin to the PATH environment variable
6. Open a Command Window
7. Run xxcopy.exe - it will print out a license agreement, ask a few questions and then install itself. I leave it in c:\bin. Do not copy it to the c:\windows\system directory.

Copy a directory tree

My preferred command syntax:

xxcopy /ks /h/e/r/y /bi /ze /q0 /f [source] [destination] > [logfile] 2>&1

Notes

The above command will overwrite [logfile] each time your run it so be sure to specify a different log file name each time.

If you are running Windows XP Service Pack 3, you will need to press a key w/in 30[?] seconds the first time you run xxcopy.exe as it warns you that this version has not been tested under Service Pack 3.

If you are copying files from the Documents and Settings directory, you may need to take ownership of the folder first or else you will run into permission issues.

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