rahul_parab2006
Rahul Parab
No this topic is not about copying or ripping audio CDs, movies or software, it is about the act of copying/transferring itself, that is copying files/folders from one location to another in the most efficient way.
To many it may seem a silly topic to discuss; sure it is for one who doesn't copy several files across partitions or network drives much, but to the one who does, would surely want to know of a good file transfer manager.
Copying/Moving is a simple act. You select the files that you want to transfer or replicate to another location, hit the move/copy command and it's done. It's a no brainer, nothing that default Windows Cut, Copy, Paste cannot handle.
But not all situations are this simple - damaged disks, files refusing to copy, system files needing user input, multiple files with different attributes, duplicate files all add to the inconvenience of using the default Windows transfer method of migrating files. These would normally not be a problem if Windows provided a better way to transfer files. Therefore began the search for a better way to migrate files across locations.
Drawbacks of Windows Copy/Move process
- Windows does not let you pause/resume file transfers in case you want to do something else.
- Windows file transfer sucks the entire available system resources during copying, making multi-tasking really slow.
- Windows file transfer method is too linear - If an error occurs during a transfer, the entire transfer aborts instead of continuing to the next file in the process. There is no provision to Skip the erroneous file either.
- Windows pauses the entire file transfer process to ask for user permissions to transfer read-only, overwrite files, etc instead of querying for user input at the end of the transfer of remaining files not in question.
- Windows has no provision for copy queuing. If something is pasted twice, two different copy process start at the same time
These drawbacks have remained constant since DOS days, so it's no surprise that Windows still adopts a very DOS-like thinking even with latest from Microsoft yet Vista, which fails to address any of these issues. To be fair though, Vista has included a slightly updated version where amount of data transferred and speed output is displayed. For those still not happy with this, there are many ingenious independent developers who feel the same and have come up with innovative little utilities that solve these issues.
Here are several utilities that do pretty much the same job with a different flair. Instead of comprehensively writing about each feature, I've noted down the most relevant points that stand-out below.
Also note that these software applications are by independent developers which do have certain bugs. System administrators need to be extra careful as some of these applications may not preserve certain attributes, time-stamps, etc which may cause problems in Enterprise environments or automated file backup situations.
- Light weight application that can replace (optional) the default Windows file transfer.
- Can pause/resume transfers.
- Let s you skip individual files
- Has copy queuing wherein during the transfer process, pressing Crtl+C/V or dragging n-dropping to different location will automatically be added to the copy queue.
- Works with XP and Vista, Beta version works on 64bit versions
TeraCopy has got to be the best freeware Windows file copy replacement. It comes with a Pro version which is $14.95 (Rs.600) with additional features such as removing files from copy queue, etc. By the way, AVG 8.0 may stupidly identify this as a virus
To many it may seem a silly topic to discuss; sure it is for one who doesn't copy several files across partitions or network drives much, but to the one who does, would surely want to know of a good file transfer manager.
Copying/Moving is a simple act. You select the files that you want to transfer or replicate to another location, hit the move/copy command and it's done. It's a no brainer, nothing that default Windows Cut, Copy, Paste cannot handle.
But not all situations are this simple - damaged disks, files refusing to copy, system files needing user input, multiple files with different attributes, duplicate files all add to the inconvenience of using the default Windows transfer method of migrating files. These would normally not be a problem if Windows provided a better way to transfer files. Therefore began the search for a better way to migrate files across locations.
Drawbacks of Windows Copy/Move process
- Windows does not let you pause/resume file transfers in case you want to do something else.
- Windows file transfer sucks the entire available system resources during copying, making multi-tasking really slow.
- Windows file transfer method is too linear - If an error occurs during a transfer, the entire transfer aborts instead of continuing to the next file in the process. There is no provision to Skip the erroneous file either.
- Windows pauses the entire file transfer process to ask for user permissions to transfer read-only, overwrite files, etc instead of querying for user input at the end of the transfer of remaining files not in question.
- Windows has no provision for copy queuing. If something is pasted twice, two different copy process start at the same time
These drawbacks have remained constant since DOS days, so it's no surprise that Windows still adopts a very DOS-like thinking even with latest from Microsoft yet Vista, which fails to address any of these issues. To be fair though, Vista has included a slightly updated version where amount of data transferred and speed output is displayed. For those still not happy with this, there are many ingenious independent developers who feel the same and have come up with innovative little utilities that solve these issues.
Here are several utilities that do pretty much the same job with a different flair. Instead of comprehensively writing about each feature, I've noted down the most relevant points that stand-out below.
Also note that these software applications are by independent developers which do have certain bugs. System administrators need to be extra careful as some of these applications may not preserve certain attributes, time-stamps, etc which may cause problems in Enterprise environments or automated file backup situations.
- Light weight application that can replace (optional) the default Windows file transfer.
- Can pause/resume transfers.
- Let s you skip individual files
- Has copy queuing wherein during the transfer process, pressing Crtl+C/V or dragging n-dropping to different location will automatically be added to the copy queue.
- Works with XP and Vista, Beta version works on 64bit versions
TeraCopy has got to be the best freeware Windows file copy replacement. It comes with a Pro version which is $14.95 (Rs.600) with additional features such as removing files from copy queue, etc. By the way, AVG 8.0 may stupidly identify this as a virus