Anyone use windows xcopy to backup and move files?

[craney5]

Just curious to know if anyone here uses the windows xcopy utility. I never knew it was built into windows until yesterday and its a fab tool for backing up and moving files quickly. The key switches are straight forward to use found it far more user friendly than any other backup method

 

[mikedl]

I used to use it back in the DOS days. Now I just use Windows Explorer as I have my views selected to show all hidden and system files.

Should one not care to do so, xcopy is a great tool for batch files and unattended file moving and saving. Ahhh, reminds me of the good old days.

 

[jsquareg]

Yep, I have used xcopy with the /D /Y and /s swithces for years in a batch file to back up My Documents and a few other folders. It just copies any changed files to my external backup file. I run it at least every day.

 

[pparks1]

While I don't use xcopy, I do use robocopy which is a built-in command line tool from Microsoft that copies from one location to another and can optionally keep them in sync. Meaning that if files are deleted from the source, they get deleted from the destination too.

The syntax that I use looks like this
robocopy C:\users\profilename\music H:\Backups\PCName\music /mir /dst
robocopy C:\users\profilename\pictures H:\Backups\PCName\pictures /mir /dst

I keep these in a batch file and run them regularly and my subsequent backups usually complete in less then 30 seconds.