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Steven Smith

Windows Tips and Tricks

Move Files in Vista without Prompting

Is there a way to move files in Vista without prompting for system-only or read-only or whatever?  If so, I'd love to know the key combination to achieve it.  I'm moving some files from another PC's hard drive to my Vista machine using a USB connector, and the process is basically open up two copies of windows explorer, find the files I want in the USB drive in one, find the location I want on my local drive in the other, and right click, drag, drop, select Move.  This process has worked fine for years, and in XP it would prompt me for various things but I could always say "Yes, I really did want it to move the stuff I just said I wanted to move." and it would work.

In Vista, the prompts come, but even after saying "Yes, really, I know, I want to move them." it will move the files, but the folders are left behind.  So the process ends up being select the stuff to move, right-click-drag it, select Move, say OK to the stupid prompt, wait for the move to finish, oops, there are still folders left behind -- grab them again, right-click-drag them again, select Move again, select "Yes I want to copy them even though they exist".  At which point, usually, the folders are moved properly.

How can I reduce this process (without dropping down to use Robocopy in the shell) to make it so when I say Move Files what I really mean is "Really F***ING MOVE The Files, I Mean It" so I don't have to go through this dance every time?

Published Wednesday, January 03, 2007 11:37 AM by ssmith

Comments

 

icelava said:

I suspect this is "by design" to prevent a real human user from habitually enforcing such a rule and thereby forever gaining any awareness of dangers may potentially result from such carelessness.

At the end, yes, Robocopy has already been my good friend.

January 16, 2007 4:47 AM
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About ssmith

Enlisted in 1995. Basic at Ft Sill. AIT at Ft Jackson (75F). Served in Ohio National Guard. Went through ROTC program at Ohio State University and received 2LT commission in 1997, Engineer branch. Spent about 4 years in 16th Engineer Brigade in Ohio National Guard, then moved far from nearest unit and went into Inactive National Guard, and eventually Individual Ready Reserve. Called up from IRR in 2004 for duty in Iraq (Engineer Platoon Leader with 1st ID). Made it home in 2005. Resigned commission as a CPT in December 2005.