Robocopy

Robocopy, or "Robust File Copy" as it calls itself, is a command-line file copying tool included with the Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Resource Kit, free to licensed users of Windows. The tool, as with much of the resource kit, operates correctly under Windows XP as well as under the Windows Server platform.

Robocopy is notable for capabilities above and beyond the built-in Windows COPY and XCOPY commands, including the following:

• Ability to copy entire subdirectories (note: XCOPY can do this, COPY can't)
• Ability to tolerate network outages and resume copying where it previously left off (incomplete files are noted with a date stamp of 1/1/1980)
• Ability to correctly copy NTFS ACLs, attributes, owner information, auditing information, and timestamps
• Ability to copy NTFS Alternate Data Streams
• Programmable number of automatic retries if a file cannot be opened
• Mode to mirror one directory into another, copying only the files that are different into the destination, skipping files that already match and optionally deleting those that no longer exist in the source
• Ability to copy large quantities of files that would normally crash the built-in XCOPY utility.
• A progress indicator on the command line that updates continuously

References

1. Robocopy.exe, Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Resource Kit, help output when run with /? command line switch