COPY files command

  • Thread starter Thread starter Joe S.
  • Start date Start date
J

Joe S.

Back in the days of DOS -- back when men were men, back when John Wayne rode
tall in the saddle, back when Elvis was still with us, back when Jerry
Garcia . . . . oh, well, you get the picture.

Back in the days of DOS, if you wanted to copy files from, say, FOLDER1 to
FOLDER2, you did it with the COPY command. Then, later on, after you had
added or edited some of the files in FOLDER1, you could copy the files to
FOLDER2 with the COPY command and some stuff after the COPY command that
copied only the files that had been changed, including the new files.

How do I do this with WinXP??? I copy MY DOCUMENTS to a portable hard drive
once a week and I'd like to copy just the files that have changed since the
last copy but can't figure out how to do it.

Thanks.
 
Joe said:
Back in the days of DOS -- back when men were men, back when John Wayne rode
tall in the saddle, back when Elvis was still with us, back when Jerry
Garcia . . . . oh, well, you get the picture.

Back in the days of DOS, if you wanted to copy files from, say, FOLDER1 to
FOLDER2, you did it with the COPY command. Then, later on, after you had
added or edited some of the files in FOLDER1, you could copy the files to
FOLDER2 with the COPY command and some stuff after the COPY command that
copied only the files that had been changed, including the new files.

How do I do this with WinXP??? I copy MY DOCUMENTS to a portable hard drive
once a week and I'd like to copy just the files that have changed since the
last copy but can't figure out how to do it.

Thanks.
Click to expand...

Note that you can arrange files by date/time in Windows Explorer, which
makes it EASY to select files modified after a date/time when in details
view. You can click the "Date Modified" column header to sort by
ascending or descending order.

Have you read the help information for the XCOPY command in Windows XP?
For command prompt help, type the command (in a command prompt window of
course) followed by a space, slash and question mark.

I see something about a /M flag that copies files then clears the
archive attribute. In DOS 6 the archive attribute was set any time a
file was created or modified. If that behavior still holds true in
Windows XP, use of the /M flag should only xcopy the new and modified files.
 
Sun said:
Then, later on, after you had
added or edited some of the files in FOLDER1, you could copy the files to
FOLDER2 with the COPY command and some stuff after the COPY command that
copied only the files that had been changed, including the new files.

How do I do this with WinXP???
Click to expand...

The same way you always did. Open a command prompt and type
COPY /?
to remind yourself of the options.
 
From the command prompt (Start, Run, 'cmd' without quotes):

copy /? - for options on regular copy
xcopy /? - for options on extended copy

Those haven't changed that much since DOS.. but what has changed is how
path names and folder names are managed:

"C:\Documents and Settings\yourname\My Documents" - In Explorer.
"C:\Docume~1\yourna~1\Mydocu~1" - In CMD.

The 'short' version is the one that works best when referring to
pathnames in batch files, in case you go that way.
Wildcards still work too.

Here is a snippet from a 'backup' batchfile I use often planned as a
monthly task, cleaned up for this posting:

XCOPY <sourcedrive>:\<sourcefolder> <targetdrive>:\<targetfolder> /D /E
/V /C /H /R /K /Y

/D - Copy newer files (you can also supply a start date).
/E - Copy folders and subfolders, even if empty.
/V - Verify.
/C - Copy even when errors occur.
/H - Also copy hidden and system files.
/R - Overwrite read-only files.
/K - Keep flags (read-only, archive, etc).
/Y - Suppress confirmation questions (Assume YES).
 
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