Kickin' Ass and Takin' Names said:
Back in the day when DOS was king, when men were men, when giants
walked the Earth, there was a COPY command. I forget the syntax but
it was something like: COPY (from one place),(to another place)
(then there were some switches you could add to the command line
that told the computer to copy only files that had been changed or
were new.
This made backups simple -- I copied my documents to a floppy then,
a few days later, copied the changed and new ones and I still had
the documents copied during the previous copy operation.
Now, with WinXP, I can't figure out how to do this. I have an
external HD where I copy my documents, spreadsheets, web sites,
bookmarks, cookies, and address book every so often and it takes
forever because EVERYTHING is copied, not just the changed or new
files.
Anyway in Windows Explorer to copy everything, then, in subsequent
copy actions, copy only changed or new files?
XCOPY will do what you desire - I don't know that COPY ever did the "new
only" thing in DOS.
- Click on the Start button...
- Choose "Run"...
- Type in:
cmd /k xcopy /?
- Click OK.
XCOPY source [destination] [/A | /M] [/D[:date]] [/P] [/S [/E]] [/V] [/W]
[/C] [/I] [/Q] [/F] [/L] [/G] [/H] [/R] [/T] [/U]
[/K] [/N] [/O] [/X] [/Y] [/-Y] [/Z]
[/EXCLUDE:file1[+file2][+file3]...]
source Specifies the file(s) to copy.
destination Specifies the location and/or name of new files.
/A Copies only files with the archive attribute set,
doesn't change the attribute.
/M Copies only files with the archive attribute set,
turns off the archive attribute.
/D:m-d-y Copies files changed on or after the specified date.
If no date is given, copies only those files whose
source time is newer than the destination time.
/EXCLUDE:file1[+file2][+file3]...
Specifies a list of files containing strings. Each string
should be in a separate line in the files. When any of the
strings match any part of the absolute path of the file to be
copied, that file will be excluded from being copied. For
example, specifying a string like \obj\ or .obj will exclude
all files underneath the directory obj or all files with the
.obj extension respectively.
/P Prompts you before creating each destination file.
/S Copies directories and subdirectories except empty ones.
/E Copies directories and subdirectories, including empty ones.
Same as /S /E. May be used to modify /T.
/V Verifies each new file.
/W Prompts you to press a key before copying.
/C Continues copying even if errors occur.
/I If destination does not exist and copying more than one file,
assumes that destination must be a directory.
/Q Does not display file names while copying.
/F Displays full source and destination file names while
copying.
/L Displays files that would be copied.
/G Allows the copying of encrypted files to destination that
does
not support encryption.
/H Copies hidden and system files also.
/R Overwrites read-only files.
/T Creates directory structure, but does not copy files. Does
not
include empty directories or subdirectories. /T /E includes
empty directories and subdirectories.
/U Copies only files that already exist in destination.
/K Copies attributes. Normal Xcopy will reset read-only
attributes.
/N Copies using the generated short names.
/O Copies file ownership and ACL information.
/X Copies file audit settings (implies /O).
/Y Suppresses prompting to confirm you want to overwrite an
existing destination file.
/-Y Causes prompting to confirm you want to overwrite an
existing destination file.
/Z Copies networked files in restartable mode.
The switch /Y may be preset in the COPYCMD environment variable.
This may be overridden with /-Y on the command line.
There are MANY applications (free and more) that would do what you want in a
graphical interface. Differential and incremental backups is sort of what
you describe. Google...
