I'm looking for a way to automate archiving where after I plug my two external drives I can copy all my resources. The problem is that I have different file structures on my laptop and on both external drives so I need to select specific folders to be copied. It means that I can't select one root folder and copy it straightforward. I tried to find a way to declare more than one path in the cp command and in the copy command, without success. An example path:
/my_programming_stuff
/folder1
/folder2
/folder3
/folder4
I want to select only the first 3 folders to copy them into external drive1 and external drive 2. The idea is to create a .bat file that will copy everything at once ( in the best case scenario it will be copied simultaneously on both external drives, so it will be much faster). Another problem is that there needs to be a bypass the ntfs long path limitations (max. 260 characters).
Flags that I want to use:
Copy the files and directories and all of their attributes,
including ownerships and permissions.
Recursively copy directories and their contents.
When copying files from one directory to another, only
copy files that either doesn't exist or are newer than the
existing corresponding files, in the destination
directory.
data verification (so it's certain that the copy was verified)
progression bar with time eta
Until now I was using Total Commander to do this but every day I need to pick only a few folders to be copied which takes time and is inefficient.
I have experience with Bash and PowerShell but I am not sure how to handle this topic.
Create a static batch file with robocopy commands. I think /copyall is the only switch you need to specify for all this. Other defaults should satisfy requirements.
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-server/administration/windows-commands/robocopy
I think your time will be better spent learning how to use either FastCopy or FreeFileSynce. I used FreeFileSync some years ago but got disgusted with the it's constantly changing format of its xml file used for starting a backup, so I switched to FastCopy. But it looks like FreeFileSync may be getting their act together and I aim to do some experiments over the summer to see if I want to switch back to it.
Both can handle the long filename format issues, both can be executed by a batch file, both seem to have a lot of quality, but FreeFileSync has more features - and more bloated because of the features. But speed wise, I think FastCopy is probably one of the better products out there and very streamline in use and design.
Related
apologies to start as im new to powershell and robocopy.
i have a robocopy command that pulls in any files within its many subfolders that are within a maxage of 7. however, the main folder has a huge amount of folders dating back years(and i only need last 7 days each week it runs) so its slow reading each file in each folder before it even copies using robocopy.
it looks like powershell commands may be a way for me to limit the search of files for my robocopy, would this be possible? currently robocopy search each files in each folder in my main folder, ideally i would want it to be smart enough to only search even a months worth of files and then copy over last 7 days. this would speed up the run time hugely.
if possible even further, i only want csv files in each of the folders in my main folder but current robocopy searches the other folders and its files as well which takes time. all the csv files are in a folder called "run" in each parent folder(parent folder is a unique number within the "mainfolder".
my robocopy command:
robocopy \\server\mainfolder \\server\new_main_folder /S /maxage:7 /r:0 /w:0
I was going to point to you either FastCopy or FreeFileSync, both handle long file name paths and work well for me. But found problems running FastCopy when trying to filter folders the way you described. I wasn't getting the results I expected, so that leaves FreeFileSync. There is a little bit of a learning curve with FreeFileSync, but really, the only problem/complaint I've had with it is the xml based batch script that you can use to automate the program kept changing formats and they haven't been providing a way to read the old xml batch scripts with the new version of the software. Maybe that has changed, I haven't looked into that lately.
Maybe other people have had better experience with RoboCopy, but I found it to take literally many multiples longer to do the same job as many other copy programs. I don't think FreeFileSync is as fast as FastCopy, but I've never seen it act as bad as what I experienced with RoboCopy.
The way FreeFileSync works is:
You define 1 or more source/destination pairs.
There is a global setting at the top to set the defaults for all copy pairs.
There are individual settings per each copy pair that when set override the global settings.
In the filter tab of the settings you can set "Time span:" to "Last x days:" and set it to the 7 days that you want.
You can change include from * to something like \run\*.csv. I didn't try that exact pattern, but the patterns I did try worked as expected (Unlike FastCopy).
The Synchronization tab is the tricky/fun one. You can do logs, versioning, tell the system to shutdown or restart when done, maintain a database for tracking moved files ("Detect moved files" checkbox), and all kinds of adjustments to how it behaves when files don't match.
When done, there is I believe at least 2 options for saving the configuration - though I've always just created the xml based batch script and called that from another scripting language or an icon on the desktop.
Every time I simulate in Dymola, a number of "useless" (for me) files are created in the working directory - i.e. dsfinal.txt, dsin.txt, dslog.txt, dsmodel.c, dymosim.exe. I find it annoying as it messes up my directory.
Is there a way to select only the desired output files to be kept after the simulations, without the need of manually deleting the undesired ones?
Those are temporary, but necessary files for Dymola. As far as I know there is no option to delete them automatically. Of course you could script that, but I don't see a real point to it and those files are used by some functionality - e.g. dsfinal.txt is used when as simulation is continued.
Some notes: Those files are created in the working directory - which should contain temporary files only. The working directory can be set via the GUI using File -> Options -> Settings:
A rather common problem is, that there is a Open and a Load function in Dymola:
As the description states, Load does not influence the working directory, whereas Open sets it to the directory from which a file is opened. The latter is also true for opening files e.g. via a double-click from the explorer. So usually it is better to go with Load.
My advice would be to separate the directories in which models/packages are stored and the working directory. This way the working directories content can be fully deleted basically anytime...
I have dir1 and dir2 which have subfolders and files of the same name. Both folders have roughly 1800 items and I need to compare to find which files are different. I need to be able to report the name of any files that are either, in one and not the other, or in both but different.
I have used tools such as WinMerge which can spot it in under a minute. However, I am trying to automate this process so being able to do it in powershell or as a batch command would be ideal.
From a powershell standpoint, my searches have suggested to pull the hash and compare them between files, which works, but takes forever due to the size of the directories.
If anyone could help steer me in the right direction or how I should approach this, it would be much appreciated.
WinMerge has a CLI which should give you exactly what you need.
I'm looking for solution to delete or (preferably directly) overwrite source of an exe file while it is running.
To explain further before you get it all wrong, I'll give an example:
I have an exe file on drive D:\ which I run (with previously posted question's answer, giving params to "Start in" folder on C:\Program Files\MyProgram\" so it finds its dlls.
Now after the file is running, I'd like to rewrite the file's byte stream (just like opening it in hex editor...), or at least delete it so I can copy over new exe file directly using same name.
So far the solution I'm using is that I trigger format D: command for the whole drive D:\ (which, in my case is ramdisk and thumb-drive, as I only have this exe on it, I copy it there as necessary), since that removes the file and let's me copy new file there.
Trying to use del myProgram.exe even with -force flag triggers error that access to the file is denied. Same goes if I try to overwrite the contents of the file.
Is there any alternative to do that without using the format command, as that requires to have partition drive only for the purpose?
Update: Note: MoveFileEx and similar techniques that require termination of the process or system restart/reboot are not qualified as a solution. This should be done while the process is running without further actions that can compromise the process's run state.
On a side note, when formatting the drive using the Powershell's format command, the file is gone, although if viewing the partition using Hex viewer tool, there is full binary (hex) content of the exe visible there and an be restored using just as simple as copy-paste technique. This is one of the points as to where overwriting the file contents would be preferable than deleting the file directly.
Please note: This is a knowledge and skills based question, and would therefore appreciate sparing the moral and security-concerning comments about such actions and behaviour.
For deleting/replacing/overwriting a file at least two conditions must be met:
The user performing the operation must have the required permissions to do so. This can be verified for instance via Get-Acl or icacls.
Windows must not have an open handle to the file. This can be checked for instance with tools like Process Explorer or handle. These tools can also be used to forcibly close open handles, although that's not recommended as it may cause data loss and/or damage to the files in question. I'm not sure, though, if it's actually possible to close handles to an executable without terminating the process.
Note that antivirus software is likely to interfere with this kind of operation.
The basic problem here is that Windows loads from the .EXE upon demand, it's not all read in at once.
If you destroy the original file what happens when it tries to load in a page that no longer exists?
If I had to write something of this sort I would copy the .exe to a temporary location (beware that running code from the temp directory may be prohibited), run the new .exe, terminate the old one and then do what I want to it.
Unfortunatly for me we have a legacy file system which has been around since the dinosaurs roamed. Over time, files have been moved/copied to a location which has generated a folder + file structure which is too long to simply copy from one location to another. (long file name)
What I see as a solution is to use powershell to map a drive to each file location, copy it then recurse for each.
e.g.
net use w: \newlocation\
net use x: \silly long file path\folder1\
xcopy x:\file.txt w:\folder1
then use for each to copy the same structure as it was originally.
I know it seems long winded but I cannot think of a better way forward. I've tried Robocopy which is supposed to avoid this problem but through much testing.. Nope. Still fails to copy.
Can you please suggest a good method for doing this?
Not sure if you are still looking for an answer but you can try the program called Beyond Compare which should work for you.
Honestly, I didn't spend too much time with it as it has bunch of options but I know people who successfully use it every day for files with long file names.