Quite to the contrary, most cloning software *does* work with Windows XP
but Xcopy absolutely *cannot* clone a booted Windows XP installation.
Let's try a simple little test, it is perfectly safe and so easy to try
that even you, Andrew, should be able to do it.
At a Command prompt issue the following commands, pressing enter after each:
md c:\tempo
xcopy %systemroot%\system32\config c:\tempo /h/e/k/r
So, what happens when you try the above Xcopy command? A pesky little
detail, isn't it? Of course being that you have a sharp eye you will
have noticed that I removed one of your Xcopy switches in my little
example, your way around the pesky error is to add the /c switch to the
command. The /c switch instructs Xcopy to ignore errors, forget about
files causing errors and move on to the next file and keep on copying.
Maybe a good switch to use when backing up user files on a network and
not wanting the whole backup to fail just because one of your users
somewhere on the network has an open file, not such a good switch to use
if you want to "clone" a drive! So now try the test with your set of
switches:
xcopy %systemroot%\system32\config c:\tempo /c/h/e/k/r
So, your command completed and everything looks fine, doesn't it? Now,
go look at the results of your efforts, take a look at the contents of
the C:\tempo folder and compare it to the original
Windows\system32\config folder. The Config folder holds the Windows
registry, your Xcopy cloning method completely fails to copy the most
important set of files to the new drive, a clone made with your Xcopy
method will fail to boot. Xcopy cannot clone a booted Windows NT type
installation so stop posting this nonsense of yours.
John
