HICKERY – xcopy Command

Tired of all the prompts while copying files? Here is a better/efficient way to copy files around. This command is especially helpful when copying tens of gigabytes of files, for example backing up your c drive into an external hard drive.

Here we have some files in the source folder:

You can use the following steps to copy files:

1. Run command prompt as an administrator.
2. Type the copy command as follows: xcopy c:\sourcefolder c:\targetfolder /h/i/c/k/e/r/y

Explanation of the options:

1. /h: Copies hidden and system files, which, xcopyy does not do by default.
2. /i: If destination directory does not exist, xcopy creates new directory. Then it copies all files into new directory. It suppresses the prompt to see whether target is a file or directory.
3. /c: This parameter ignores errors.
4. /k: Retains read-only attribute on target files if it is present on source files. xcopy removes read-only by default.
5. /e: This parameter ensures that all the
   sub-directories are also copied even though they are empty.
6. /r: Copies read only files.
7. /y: This parameter suppresses prompting to confirm that you want to overwrite an existing destination file.

After running the above command, you will see the TargetFolder as follows: