No to all

[Hartismere]

Hello,

I do all my backups to external drives manually - never used a backup program, I must remain in control at all times. When I am Copying or Moving I always meet the same dialogue box when the process encounters a file with the same name as that being copied/moved. Here I have the options to overwrite, not overwrite, and also, "YES TO ALL". Fine, but what I mostly want is, "NO TO ALL". This would mean that all the questionable files are not automatically overwritten, and when the MOVEing process has completed I will be left with a list of files that I can check manually to see if they are actually the same. This, I think, should have been offered long before "Yes to all", as this latter overwrites regardless, which is dangerous.

Does anybody know how I can add this feature to that window? I know I can simply hold down the "N" key, but some transfers take a lot of time, and I got other things to do.

Good site, by the way. Found several useful solutions and answers. Hope I can supply a few of my own.

Paul.

[Tripredacus]

I am not aware of such a thing, but it seems to me that you would be better off using a backup program that offers a Differential Backup option. Differential backups only save files that are different, be it filename, file size or modified date from the files it has already backed up.

[GrofLuigi]

Have you tried this? Warning: I have not tested it myself. Maybe you should do some tests first to see the behavior.

GL

[djmuk]

Why not use synctoy - It gives you a list of proposed operations so you can remove any you don't want to happen...

(Or write a batch file to do it..?)

Edited September 7, 2009 by djmuk

[jcarle]

Or switch to Windows Vista or Windows 7. No to all has been available since Vista RTM.

[Andromeda43]

I thoroughly understand the "I wanna be in control" syndrome.

I suffer from that malady myself. :lol:

But, having said that, I also want to know that if my hard drive (heaven forbid)

squalls, balls and smokes, that I have all my important stuff (everything) is

sufficiently backed up.

I save so many things on a daily basis, that my weekly Ghost backup falls way

short of assuring that ALL my stuff will be restoreable, in case of a general

hard drive failure.

As I do so often, I went back to my roots (MS Dos) for a solution to the

problem. To keep this short, I will tell you that I found the solution to my

daily backup of all my stuff in the old Dos XCOPY command.

I wrote a rather simple batch file to back up any new files or files that have

been edited or changed, to my secondary hard drive.

I incorporated this batch file into my Shutdown routine for a seamless daily backup.

If I edit a file, like one of my Excel spreadsheets, I want that new version saved and

to overwrite the old (out of date) version.

To this batch file I've added lines to backup all my email and even my address book.

Here is a sample of an XCOPY command line to backup everything that falls under

"My Documents", including all sub folders.

xcopy "C:\Documents and Settings\Alex\My Documents\*.*" "D:\My Documents\" /s /y /H /R /D

I hope this humble offering will help someone wanting to set up their own backup scheme.

Cheers Mates,

B)

[dencorso]

The king of all Incremental Backup solutions is XXCOPY. Give it a try. It rocks!!!

And it's freeware for personal (non-commercial) use.

[jcarle]

The king of all Incremental Backup solutions is XXCOPY. Give it a try. It rocks!!!

And it's freeware for personal (non-commercial) use.

I used to love XXCOPY. Until I started using a 64-bit operating system. They want to shaft you with the license because you're running 64-bit.

[Hartismere]

Thanks for all the replies. It wasn't actually a "Backup" situation, simply the way windows responds in that situation. But, I am very familiar with DOS - sigh - happiness - but only in some situations. I remember trying to get a hand scanner to work with DOS. Took me and the college's tech assistant days and days. But I used DOS's Sort to prepare a book 'cos Windows version is wrong.

Anyway, I'm not absolutely certain that Shift/No works, but it seems to. Will do more definitive tests soon.

Buuuuuuut, got another one. Also when copying or moving multiple files, if windows meets a file it can't, for any reason, Copy or Move, it jumps out of the whole process. I doesn't just flag that file and continue, or offer an "Ignore" button, it actually refuses to continue the whole process, which is very annoying. We have to try each file individually to find those causing the problem.

Windows should, clearly, have written the routine to flag and list ornery files, but still continue the process. Another error. But, anyone know how to force the process to continue? In the case of Move, we would simply be left with a directory view that showed those files unable to be copied and deleted. Copy would pose different problems.

There are so many of these little niggles that I wonder if the techs at ms actually take notes. "Oooh, must sort that Copy thing out.", "Oooh, that Move thing didn't work, must talk to Bill." , instead, they probably say, "Oh, sodit, never mind, let's just sell the thing anyway as it is, faulty, illogical, wrong. We'll just say it's user-inadequacy, whose to know? Not the user, ha, they're inadequate."

Would it not be wonderful if this site, and all other windows-users problem-solving sites did not exist. I think so. So many Operating Systems from ms, and so many sites seeking solutions to ms OS problems still. Speaks volumes.

The next decent OS from ms should be 100% FREE to all those with any Genuine copy of any previous OS from ms. Anything else is just usuary and theft. (It must, though, also contain NO, absolutely, NO messages from the awful UAC stuff. I can't believe that this computer thinks it controls me. This PC is no different from an electric drill, simply a tool that I own. If my drill started requiring me to input passwords, or prove ownership, I'd smash it to bits with a sledgehammer, and then demand my money back for the inconvenience, and get a lawyer to sue for hospital costs.)

Sorry, just a tiny rant, there. Lord, I hate ms and UAC. Anyone disagree, fine, go to another post.

The question was: Also when copying or moving, if windows meets a file it can't, for any reason, Copy or Move, it jumps out of the whole process. I doesn't just flag that file and continue, it actually refuses to continue, which is very annoying. Anyone know how to force windows to ignore those problem files and continue the process?

Cheers.

[jcarle]

Buuuuuuut, got another one. Also when copying or moving multiple files, if windows meets a file it can't, for any reason, Copy or Move, it jumps out of the whole process. I doesn't just flag that file and continue, or offer an "Ignore" button, it actually refuses to continue the whole process, which is very annoying. We have to try each file individually to find those causing the problem.

Also fixed in Windows Vista / Windows 7.

[iamtheky]

http://www.codesector.com/teracopy.php

teracopy seems to solve most of those issues in XP land.

[Grake]

Also fixed in Windows Vista / Windows 7.

Looks like he's using either Vista or 7, as he seems to have UAC. Don't know of any other versions with UAC.

[jcarle]

Looks like he's using either Vista or 7, as he seems to have UAC. Don't know of any other versions with UAC.

Actually, I think UAC is the reason he's not. At least it seems to be as his profile shows him using XP... so... it's up in the air really...