Quick question regarding file copying

  • Thread starter Thread starter Zerex71
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Zerex71

Greetings,

I had a question for a while now that I wanted to get some help with.
Is it possible to copy files/folders from one location onto another
location (e.g. to restore backed-up data) but have WinXP set to
overwrite everything in the target directory? In other words, if I
have a lot of stuff in A, and B represents only the set of stuff I want
to keep, and I want to restore the stuff in B over A and not leave
extra stuff sitting around (which I deleted the first time because I
knew I didn't want it anymore), can I do that?

Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

Mike
 
What I'm asking is if there is a setting in WinXP to force an
overwrite/delete. I know I can delete manually.
 
Greetings,

I had a question for a while now that I wanted to get some help with.
Is it possible to copy files/folders from one location onto another
location (e.g. to restore backed-up data) but have WinXP set to
overwrite everything in the target directory? In other words, if I
have a lot of stuff in A, and B represents only the set of stuff I want
to keep, and I want to restore the stuff in B over A and not leave
extra stuff sitting around (which I deleted the first time because I
knew I didn't want it anymore), can I do that?

Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

Mike
Click to expand...

It depends on the method you use. Windows Explorer? Command
Prompt commands, e.g. xcopy.exe? ntbackup.exe?
 
You're probably looking for some type of folder compare utility. If you
check over on alt.comp.freeware, someone will probably know what you are
looking for.
Louis
 
What I'm asking is if there is a setting in WinXP to force an
overwrite/delete. I know I can delete manually.
Click to expand...

you can force overwrite with command line options for the "xcopy" command ,
no "copying" programs I know of will delete.

what method are you using to "restore" the files ?
 
Greetings,

I had a question for a while now that I wanted to get some help with.
Is it possible to copy files/folders from one location onto another
location (e.g. to restore backed-up data) but have WinXP set to
overwrite everything in the target directory? In other words, if I
have a lot of stuff in A, and B represents only the set of stuff I
want to keep, and I want to restore the stuff in B over A and not
leave extra stuff sitting around (which I deleted the first time
because I knew I didn't want it anymore), can I do that?

Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.
Click to expand...

I think I know what you want.

You have an active folder in which things come and go. Periodically you copy
the contents of this folder to a backup folder.

The backup folder contains the current stuff plus outdated stuff that was
once current.

You question is how to keep the stuff in the backup folder matching the
current. Right?

I presume you have a command somewhere like:

XCOPY ...A\*.* B /S

Simply precede the above command with:

DEL B\*.* /Q / S [Q=Quiet, do not prompt for deletion]

I'd add
DIR A > B\DIR.TXT

to get a current directory of the backed-up A folder.
 
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