Subj : Re: Copy to file or directory? Help? Calling MS-Dos? To : Outsider From : meirman Date : Fri Feb 01 2002 02:44 pm From: meirman@f3.n342.z1.cereal.mv.com (meirman) Subject: Re: Copy to file or directory? Help? Calling MS-Dos? From: meirman In comp.os.msdos.4dos on Fri, 01 Feb 2002 19:19:47 +0100 Outsider posted: >meirman wrote: >> >> I hope you don't mind three questions in one post. >> >> In the statement >> >> xcopy c:\windows\file.dat d:\dir\file.dat >> >> the computer wants to know if my destination was a file or a >> directory. IIRC, Dos assumes I mean a file, and this is a feature of >> 4DOS. >> >> Usually I just tell it, but this time it was part of a .bat file. Is >> there a paramenter or a way to write the xcopy statement to tell it >> which it is in advance. >> >> (I got around it with an echo statement, but it seems it should be >> easier than that.) > >...snipped > >These are not specific to 4DOS, but you might try them. I don't >know if any MSDOS stuff works in 4DOS as I have not been able to >gather any worthwhile information from this group about 4DOS. > > >ECHO F |XCOPY.exe file1 file2 > This is what I ended up doing, and it works fine, but if I hadn't seen someone else do something like this, I probably woulnd't have thought of it. And this is so indirect, I may forget it any second now. (not kidding.) >or > >XCOPY.exe c:\example1.fil w:\temp\*.* > >[or >XCOPY.exe c:\example1.fil w:\temp\ ] >or I would not have thought of the first one above, although it makes sense. The second one is what I guess I had in mind, but since I was changing the name of the file, I can't use either of these. Maybe I needn't change the name but I was going from user.dat to userbak.dat. I wanted a reminder that it was a backup file. Also, I'm thinking of making a series of these backup files, like scanreg does, but better :) . I really don't like scanreg because it only goes back 5 days' sessions, because it runs without my control, and ! for some reason it hasn't run automatically for 18 months. Well maybe once, but iiuc the date on RB00n.cab was changed when it was renamed to RBbad.cab (meaning it had been used to restore the registry). So for that file, I may not know what the date was. I digress. At any rate, I want my own system, to save when I like how everything is, and to restore when win98 has taken it upon itself to change things. >XCOPY.exe c:\example1.fil w:\temp\*example1.fil This one I don't know at all. It looks like it accomplishes everything I need. >You'll have to experiment a little. Yes, I'll do that. > If this is not specifically for >4DOS, it would be much better to ask in news:alt.msdos.batch Yeah, I confused changes that came about by switching to dos6 from those that happened because I was using NDOS or 4DOS. Thanks. meirman@QQQerols.com If you email me, please let me know whether remove the QQQ or not you are posting the same letter. -- |Fidonet: meirman 1:342/3 | | Origin: The Cereal Port BBS (603)899-3335 199.125.78.133 (1:132/152) --- # Origin: (1:132/152.4) * Origin: Baddog BBS (1:218/903) .