Talk:Robocopy

message: I've added a 'similar utilities' section. I know there's lots; I just added one of my favourites. I consider this would help those looking for a backup/copying tool. peterl 04:59, 1 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Similar utilities

message: A guy at my office says robocopy is faster than the copy accessible through windows explorer. Any word on this?
Reply: Yep, it appears to be about 2.5x faster in some cases.
"Proformat" is not a word (yet).  
http://boulter.com/blog/2004/08/19/performant-is-not-a-word/
http://weblogs.asp.net/jgalloway/archive/2007/05/10/performant-isn-t-a-word.aspx
199.64.0.252 (talk) 21:47, 16 June 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Speed and performance. 

message: The article seems to say that robocopy copies ACLs by default.  But the robocopy help says:
 /COPY:copyflag[s] :: what to COPY (default is /COPY:DAT).
                      (copyflags : D=Data, A=Attributes, T=Timestamps).
                      (S=Security=NTFS ACLs, O=Owner info, U=aUditing info).
which means that ACLs aren't default.-06:44, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Changed article to reflect that this is correct. Reswobslc 05:59, 22 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: ACLs

message: "Ability to copy entire subdirectories": 
 This should be removed as both COPY and XCOPY can easily be used to do this
 "Ability to copy large numbers of files that would otherwise crash the built-in XCOPY utility.":
 "Large numbers" should to be quantified by the author. In my experience, I've used XCOPY on Windows 2000 with entire volumes
 containing over 100,000 files.
I found COPY and XCOPY both failed to copy files larger than 4bg in (windows server 2003).
~~  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.199.128.155 (talk) 11:42, 7 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: The number is no clear limit. It depends on the command switches you use with xcopy. In my environment I get always an "Out of memory" error with about 50.000 files when I use the /D switch. Robocopy has no problems with that. So this is a main reason for many people to use it instead of xcopy.--80.139.250.233 (talk) 21:46, 1 September 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Suggested Corrections to beyond the built-in Windows COPY and XCOPY commands section 

message: :Unix/*nix programs (Also sometimes used in Windows versions)
*cp -- copy files; can concatenate files
*cpio -- copy an entire directory structure from one place to another
*cat -- concatenate and display files
*dd -- copy streams, files, or devices in whole or part
*head -- display/copy the first part of a file
*tail -- display/copy the last part of a file
:DOS/Windows programs (Seldom used in *nix versions)
*COPY -- copy files or sets of files, binary or text mode, can concatenate files
*XCOPY -- eXtended version of COPY, for copying file structures
*XXCOPY -- further extended commercial program
*ROBOCOPY -- further extended version, included in Vista, Also available a part of the optional Windows 2000, Windows 2003 and windows XP resource toolkits.
Other specialized programs are used to split large files into pieces and then put the pieces back together.
Remote executing? (rsync -e)  —Preceding unsigned comment added by Abonino (talk • contribs) 07:15, 19 March 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: 69.87.200.198 emitted "In Windows, the obscure program CPART can be used."  I'd say it is obscure as it's not part of windows. Marc Kupper (talk) (contribs) 17:25, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

text: I wouldn't classify robocopy as just a file copying program like tail or cp.  It is more of a data center admin tool.  It solves more complex problems, like keeping two folder trees synchronized, backing up changes, checkpointing and restarting its operation, etc.  It's also one of the few programs that does these things correctly and robustly. DonPMitchell (talk) 01:54, 23 February 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  copy commands 

message: I'm afraid I can't find any documentation on the precision of timestamps that Robocopy preserves.  In particular, it would be nice to know whether Robocopy only preserves the Modified time, or the Created and Last Accessed time as well (which most programs do not).  Additionally, does Robocopy preserve the Created timestamp of a directory (folder)?  And further still, I understand that some of these timestamps may include milliseconds--are these also preserved?
To date, I have yet to find a copy/move/sync software that does all of the above.  Rather, the only program that comes close is WinRAR with its ability to preserve Modified, Created, Last Accessed and Folder timestamps. Agvulpine (talk) 07:03, 28 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I just tested it, and it looks to me like it preserves those values (I am using version "XP010").  I robocopied some data and it preserved the "created" and "modified" dates, though, obviously, the "accessed" date shows today.  --P shadoh (talk) 15:44, 3 July 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Precision of Timestamps copied? 

message: Does anybody know how well the Robocopy GUI works with the Vista version of Robocopy, as it seems to have been made before Vista came out?
Also, having some version information here would be good.  I seem to have three different versions on my computers.Jason404 (talk) 17:13, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Robocopy GUI 

message: It was my hope that I could use this utility to archive my files by burning them on dvd. I can't use simple windows gui copy because it doesn't preserve timestamps (or preserves only file/folder modification timestamp, not creation timestamp). But we must say it: robocopy.exe can't copy files to the standard Windows XP drag and drop cd burner. (by copying to D:\ folder, where D drive is a dvd burner). 80.244.146.197 (talk) 15:30, 16 November 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: CD burning

message: The example is fubar.
Iowaseven (talk) 00:38, 15 February 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Fubar example

message: Proposed Change
Is there any limitation known for robocopy when used with a different filesystem than NTFS such as GPT?  If GPT is a perfectly acceptable filesystem for it's use, then I the first line of the page should be changed where it mentions NTFS.  It needs to include GPT or just generically mention the filesystem. eximo (talk) 16:38, 7 January 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: GPT is not a file system, it is a format of a partition table, which is not part of the file system at all.  It is the record on the drive that says where the file systems are located, and it is found outside - not inside - those file systems.  When that is understood, the clarification isn't really needed, any more than it would be necessary to say that Robocopy works on both ATA and SCSI drives.  The answer is of course, so long as Windows can see the filesystem.  The same goes for anything that looks like a filesystem to Windows, including CD drives, network shares, FAT partitions, floppy disks, etc. Reswobslc (talk) 17:17, 17 April 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: GPT vs NTFS filesystem

message: There is no real need to include full list of option in the article. I've added an external link to a comprehensive description of Windows Vista/Server 2008 version of Robocopy in the TechNet Library, http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc733145(WS.10).aspx  --188.123.237.4 (talk) 15:50, 15 March 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: No you did not add a link to a comprehensive description. The description of many of the options in the TechNet Library lacks a lot to be desired. Which is probably why better descriptions was made here by many good contributors. I have benefited a lot from those better descriptions. Now someone has deleted it and I can't find it anywhere else. To the person who deleted it: Please don't delete without first making sure that the info is somewhere else and there is a link to it. --AndersHM (talk) 07:21, 25 October 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Command-line reference 

message: From this page:
http://www.out-web.net/?p=663
There are few different versions of Robocopy though:
1.) XP010 – version from Resource Kit that is being used by most administrators
2.) XP026 – updated version, however it’s not easy to get it
3.) XP027 – new version built-into Windows Vista
4.) XP027 – new version built-into Windows 7 
Even though version number is the same, Windows 7 version of Robocopy contains some improvements – /MT parameter. Default value is 8, maximum allowed is 128.
With /MT, you can specify how many threads will robocopy use to copy files. I was really curious about these results, so I decided to give it a try and test how different versions of Robocopy compares. For each test I decided to do combination of following variables: files count, files size and number of threads.
First, let’s compare versions 10, 26 and 27. On horizontal, you can see amount of files (100, 1000 and 3000). Lower number is better (amount of time needed to copy those files).................  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.252.64.50 (talk) 17:05, 15 March 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Here is one more addition. http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2646535/en-us --114.22.51.60 (talk) 02:24, 11 September 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  TWO versions of Robocopy XP027!!! 

message: A mention on Junction points and how they can cause un-intended recursion might be worth putting in the article somewhere.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 121.98.221.148 (talk) 08:18, 8 June 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Junction Points 

message: Should it be added that Robocopy could also be a word used to describe someone acting like Robocop? HotshotCleaner (talk) 07:26, 25 October 2011 (UTC)
thread_title: Alternate definition

message: Dear Sirs,
This is new for me but I have a question/remark for the author of this article.
You state that there is a product version 6.1 of Robocopy.exe in Windows 7. File Version is 6.1.7601. This I cannot verify.
I think that you mean that the Windows Version is 6.1.7601 of Windows 7. That is what I get when I give the command ver in a DOS box. I have Windows 7 Ultimate SP1.
When I check the file properties of Robocopy.exe I get the following information:
Fileversion: 5.1.10.1027
Productname: Microsoft Robocopy
Productversion: XP027
When I give the command robocopy /? I do get the options /DCOPY:T and /MT[:n]. Which gives me a clue what is stated in http://www.out-web.net/?p=663 is true ? I only used the option /DCOPY:T and this works !!
Again what I want to know is, if version 6.1 exist, how can I verify the existence of it and where can I find it ?
Thank you.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by ComputerNerd75 (talk • contribs) 16:35, 3 May 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: Here is robocopy version 6.1.7601 . However, it was not bundled. --114.22.51.60 (talk) 01:52, 12 September 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Version number ? 

message: The current version states (section "Features"): "incomplete files are marked with a date stamp of 1980-01-01".
This is neither exact nor really true:
(1) It would be helpful to also mention the file time, not only the date.
(2) It is not mentioned which of the three time stamps is set (creation, last modification, last access).
(3) As a test has revealed, January 1st is not generally true.
According to the mentioned test it looks as if the date was set to midnight of January 2, 1980, UTC. For all of you whose local time represents the western hemisphere (excl. GMT/UTC) this, indeed, appears as January 1st when displayed as local time, as e.g. in Windows Explorer. In my case (Central European time, +0100) a file time of Jan 2, 1980, 01:00 was displayed.
This file time was used only for the last modification date; creation date and last access date were set to the current time. (Please note that this refers to incompletely copied files; I haven't checked it for completely copied ones.)
So I guess that the topic should read something like: "incomplete files are marked with a last modification date of 1980-01-02 00:00:00 UTC".
Can anyone of you tell whether this assumption really holds?
94.216.168.121 (talk) 04:50, 20 April 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Incorrect feature description: date of incomplete files 

message: Can measures please be taken against the repeated advertising attacks? See e.g.  84.24.61.65 (talk) 07:14, 30 August 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: As it comes from different IPs we would be forced to protect the page against every IPs (including you) during a short period of time. JackPotte (talk) 21:25, 31 August 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Spam 

message: Is it a pun on RoboCop (the film franchise), or does robo- just suggest automation of a task (robotics)? 86.136.110.44 (talk) 00:13, 24 July 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: I can't find any interviews or other sources from the original time period discussing this, but I'd be surprised if it wasn't a wink in that direction, anyway. The official line is that it stands for "Robust Copy", but they didn't call it "Robucopy". Ironphoenix (talk) 19:14, 3 January 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Pun on RoboCop? 

message: This bug fixed in Windows 10.--211.127.228.179 (talk) 17:12, 7 July 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  When using /J, read only volume cannot be made a source 

message: Hello fellow Wikipedians,
I have just added archive links to  on Robocopy. Please take a moment to review my edit. If necessary, add  after the link to keep me from modifying it. Alternatively, you can add  to keep me off the page altogether. I made the following changes:
*Added archive https://web.archive.org/20100317020028/http://www.zdnet.com.au:80/blogs/snorage/soa/Microsoft-s-Robocopy-compromise/0,2000064373,339291041,00.htm to http://www.zdnet.com.au/blogs/snorage/soa/Microsoft-s-Robocopy-compromise/0,2000064373,339291041,00.htm
When you have finished reviewing my changes, please set the checked parameter below to true to let others know.
Cheers.—cyberbot IITalk to my owner:Online 10:18, 19 February 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  External links modified 

message: I've found that as the "No open files" section states that with and without the /B switch robocopy cannot copy open files.
But with the /ZB switch it seems to be able to copy open files just fine (haven't tested only the /Z switch).
This was tested on Windows 10 running Robocopy as admin.
Am i misunderstanding this or is this a hidden bonus? 84.105.57.204 (talk) 00:49, 14 May 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Robocopy seems to be able to copy open files contrary to what the "No open files" section says