Moving files fails

[theclyde]

- New installation of Vista Home Premium on new drive
- Data on old hard drive

I am trying to move a directory tree from one place to another. I have
done this on the same drive and on different drives. I select the
parent folder, drag it to the destination, click whiochever modifier
key gives me the move to arrow instead of the copy to plus sign. Vista
thinks about it for a while then moves the files. When the move is
done, the dialog dissapears.

BUT - not all the files are moved. There are still 1500 jpg's in a
handfull of folders. I repeat the process. This time I get the file
exists dialog. I select replace. It does it thing and moves the files

BUT - I still have files left to move. After 4 iterations I have all
the files moved (maybe) but there are still some folder existing. I
go through and check to see if they are all empty. One of the folders
says it is empty, but I open it and find 2 sub-folders. These folders
still had pictures in them.

I move these files, and move the directories one by one.


Is there any way to RELIABLY move files with explorer?

 

[mikeyhsd]

there are lots of problems with this MOVE/COPY processing.
only solution I have fond that WORKS every time is to only deal with a portion of the files at a time.
read PITA, but it works every time without fail.
limit yourself to no more than 2gb at a time if possible.



(e-mail address removed)



- New installation of Vista Home Premium on new drive
- Data on old hard drive

I am trying to move a directory tree from one place to another. I have
done this on the same drive and on different drives. I select the
parent folder, drag it to the destination, click whiochever modifier
key gives me the move to arrow instead of the copy to plus sign. Vista
thinks about it for a while then moves the files. When the move is
done, the dialog dissapears.

BUT - not all the files are moved. There are still 1500 jpg's in a
handfull of folders. I repeat the process. This time I get the file
exists dialog. I select replace. It does it thing and moves the files

BUT - I still have files left to move. After 4 iterations I have all
the files moved (maybe) but there are still some folder existing. I
go through and check to see if they are all empty. One of the folders
says it is empty, but I open it and find 2 sub-folders. These folders
still had pictures in them.

I move these files, and move the directories one by one.


Is there any way to RELIABLY move files with explorer?

 

[Adam Albright]

there are lots of problems with this MOVE/COPY processing.
only solution I have fond that WORKS every time is to only deal with a portion of the files at a time.
read PITA, but it works every time without fail.
limit yourself to no more than 2gb at a time if possible.



(e-mail address removed)



- New installation of Vista Home Premium on new drive
- Data on old hard drive

I am trying to move a directory tree from one place to another. I have
done this on the same drive and on different drives. I select the
parent folder, drag it to the destination, click whiochever modifier
key gives me the move to arrow instead of the copy to plus sign. Vista
thinks about it for a while then moves the files. When the move is
done, the dialog dissapears.

BUT - not all the files are moved. There are still 1500 jpg's in a
handfull of folders. I repeat the process. This time I get the file
exists dialog. I select replace. It does it thing and moves the files

BUT - I still have files left to move. After 4 iterations I have all
the files moved (maybe) but there are still some folder existing. I
go through and check to see if they are all empty. One of the folders
says it is empty, but I open it and find 2 sub-folders. These folders
still had pictures in them.

I move these files, and move the directories one by one.


Is there any way to RELIABLY move files with explorer?

Short answer: No!

Windows Explorer from the early days of Windows, now over 21 years ago
has always been JUNK and a disgrace. Microsoft either refuses to fix
this key component or doesn't know how without unraveling huge
sections of core since the part of Explorer you see is just part of
the Windows shell and attempting to really fix the tangled web of
bloated code than extends everywhere would be a real nightmare.

All Microsoft managed to do is make it far worse in Vista. If you
think you're the only one having problems copying/moving files, think
again, you are for sure not alone.

http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/03/27/038227

That this problem is the fault of Microsoft's sloppy programming is
unmistakable. As I've said several times in different threads I have a
lot of files. Over a million, now exceeding 3 TB worth. Daily I suffer
with Vista's inability to move files around and daily I curse the
wannabe programmers at Redmond that have dumped this hopeless mess on
end users. Yes of course, I use a third party application for most
copying/moving, but damn it, I PAID for Windows, why in the hell don't
it work like it is suppose to?

Even Fanboys and MVPs normally diehard Microsoft apologists no matter
what admit that Explorer is crap and suggest you use some third party
substitute if you do any serious file shuffling on a regular basis.

One way to confirm the real problem is moronic Microsoft bungling is
to move/copy files wholesale using a smarter application that will
ignore the layers of bullshit Vista attempt to impose to restrict
everyday file maintenance in part due to file permissions, file
attribute settings, hunting for protection schemes embedded in files
and pointless on the fly sorting and thumbnail creation, things that
can slow Explorer to a crawl.

I see the problem clearly using Bounce Back which is a utility that
comes with Seagate External drives and others. I literally have one
for one backup of the million plus files I mentioned earlier. At lease
weekly I run Bounce Back's compare feature which literally scans every
file on every hard drive that contains "source" data. It next compares
these files to the contents of it's backup and generates a detailed
list of what's changed in two broad categories, files that have been
purged that I still have backups of, which I'll get rid of, and files
that are new or changed that as of yet I don't have backup for.

Now to let Explorer attempt to do such a task would be next to
impossible and take forever. Not so for Bounce Back. It typically will
generate a weekly list of between 2,000-3,000 new or changed files
that add up to between 40-70 GB's worth of stuff.

What comes next is so simple, I almost laugh. I begin by limiting the
list to purged files, those that are presently backed up I no longer
want. I can delete one at a time or groups or just get rid of them in
a single click. Of course deleting files should be a simple and quick
operation since all that really happens in the file's attribute flag
gets changed, the files are never physically destroyed, that's
impossible.

The real power of Bounce Back is how FAST it will copy files and make
backups. I see people here and elsewhere saying the Windows Explorer
tells them it will take 40 minutes sometimes more than a hour to copy
just a measly couple GB's or less. How pathetic is that?

How fast does Bounce Back do it? Well, like I said I typically have
40-70 GBs worth to copy. It too has progress bars where you can see
each file's copy/move progress as well as how far along the entire
copy job has advanced. You literally see the bar move at a steady pace
even for large several GB sized files. And move quickly! What I
consider 'little' files (50MB or so) fly by so fast you can't even
read their names, they are copied that fast

The whole process... copying on average 50 GB worth of files takes are
you ready? About 15 minutes tops. No BS with file permissions, no nag
screen endlessly popping up, no problems with hidden or read only file
attributes either or anything left over in some folder that Windows
"forgot" to copy or move which is so typical of Explorer when you
attempt to make wholesale moves or copying. Bounce Back and other
applications like it just work. Don't you wish Windows worked like it
was suppose to?

Which brings us to WHY I'm so critical of Microsoft. How dumb do their
software engineers have to be to be totally unable to write a
operating system that can do one of the most common and basic tasks
any operating system is ever asked to do, copy or move files quickly
and without issues?

 

[theclyde]

Short answer: No!

Windows Explorer from the early days of Windows, now over 21 years ago
has always been JUNK and a disgrace. Microsoft either refuses to fix
this key component or doesn't know how without unraveling huge
sections of core since the part of Explorer you see is just part of
the Windows shell and attempting to really fix the tangled web of
bloated code than extends everywhere would be a real nightmare.

All Microsoft managed to do is make it far worse in Vista. If you
think you're the only one having problems copying/moving files, think
again, you are for sure not alone.

http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/03/27/038227

That this problem is the fault of Microsoft's sloppy programming is
unmistakable. As I've said several times in different threads I have a
lot of files. Over a million, now exceeding 3 TB worth. Daily I suffer
with Vista's inability to move files around and daily I curse the
wannabe programmers at Redmond that have dumped this hopeless mess on
end users. Yes of course, I use a third party application for most
copying/moving, but damn it, I PAID for Windows, why in the hell don't
it work like it is suppose to?

Even Fanboys and MVPs normally diehard Microsoft apologists no matter
what admit that Explorer is crap and suggest you use some third party
substitute if you do any serious file shuffling on a regular basis.

One way to confirm the real problem is moronic Microsoft bungling is
to move/copy files wholesale using a smarter application that will
ignore the layers of bullshit Vista attempt to impose to restrict
everyday file maintenance in part due to file permissions, file
attribute settings, hunting for protection schemes embedded in files
and pointless on the fly sorting and thumbnail creation, things that
can slow Explorer to a crawl.

I see the problem clearly using Bounce Back which is a utility that
comes with Seagate External drives and others. I literally have one
for one backup of the million plus files I mentioned earlier. At lease
weekly I run Bounce Back's compare feature which literally scans every
file on every hard drive that contains "source" data. It next compares
these files to the contents of it's backup and generates a detailed
list of what's changed in two broad categories, files that have been
purged that I still have backups of, which I'll get rid of, and files
that are new or changed that as of yet I don't have backup for.

Now to let Explorer attempt to do such a task would be next to
impossible and take forever. Not so for Bounce Back. It typically will
generate a weekly list of between 2,000-3,000 new or changed files
that add up to between 40-70 GB's worth of stuff.

What comes next is so simple, I almost laugh. I begin by limiting the
list to purged files, those that are presently backed up I no longer
want. I can delete one at a time or groups or just get rid of them in
a single click. Of course deleting files should be a simple and quick
operation since all that really happens in the file's attribute flag
gets changed, the files are never physically destroyed, that's
impossible.

The real power of Bounce Back is how FAST it will copy files and make
backups. I see people here and elsewhere saying the Windows Explorer
tells them it will take 40 minutes sometimes more than a hour to copy
just a measly couple GB's or less. How pathetic is that?

How fast does Bounce Back do it? Well, like I said I typically have
40-70 GBs worth to copy. It too has progress bars where you can see
each file's copy/move progress as well as how far along the entire
copy job has advanced. You literally see the bar move at a steady pace
even for large several GB sized files. And move quickly! What I
consider 'little' files (50MB or so) fly by so fast you can't even
read their names, they are copied that fast

The whole process... copying on average 50 GB worth of files takes are
you ready? About 15 minutes tops. No BS with file permissions, no nag
screen endlessly popping up, no problems with hidden or read only file
attributes either or anything left over in some folder that Windows
"forgot" to copy or move which is so typical of Explorer when you
attempt to make wholesale moves or copying. Bounce Back and other
applications like it just work. Don't you wish Windows worked like it
was suppose to?

Which brings us to WHY I'm so critical of Microsoft. How dumb do their
software engineers have to be to be totally unable to write a
operating system that can do one of the most common and basic tasks
any operating system is ever asked to do, copy or move files quickly
and without issues?- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

Yes, I have come to the conclusion that I will have to go out and pay
for an adequate file manager. Hopefully one that has a real search
tool as well. Maybe I will forward the bill to Microsoft. After
spending $300 on Vista it hurts to not trust it enough to use it.

Thanks