That need for carefulness is obvious in Robocopy’s old-school syntax, which can look daunting to those who have known only graphic interfaces. RoboCopy is undeniably fast and powerful, but it’s also a classically raw command-line tool as such, it operates without much of a safety net - it will attempt to do exactly what you tell it, even if you tell it something to do something harmful. (I use other backup methods, too, but the above is the part that involves Robocopy.) This gives me three copies of every important file - the live original copy, a set-aside local copy, and one remote copy (in the cloud) - all 100% identical, and all done fast and virtually automatically. I use Robocopy every day to create a local, live, byte-for-byte, clone of my Documents folder and all its subfolders the copy is then synced to the cloud. (Most of the extra speed comes from its not having a GUI.) Robocopy - which has grown in power over the years - can serve exactly the same purpose as Replicator, and is much faster as well, especially when you’re processing deep-nested folders with many files. But the path of least resistance for me was to use Microsoft’s free Robocopy tool ( ) to produce a quick-and-dirty command-line equivalent for Replicator. I first looked at some old standby tools - xcopy and xxcopy, for example. Since then, two things happened: (1) I found a workable alternative and (2) a working version of Replicator became available! I wanted - and needed - a replacement, fast! Easy, effortless, and all but fully automatic. Whatever changes - additions, deletions, renamings, or whatever - I’d done in the source folder would be 100% replicated in the destination folder. I’d come to depend on Replicator’s effortless daily syncing of various folders and groups of folders: I’d run Replicator at the end of every day to ensure that local and cloud versions of several important folders were fully up to date and synchronized. Hat’s off to you, Karen, wherever you are!īut a change introduced by a Windows 10 update a while ago finally broke Karen’s old code. For a full decade or so, Replicator always worked flawlessly - testament to how robust Karen’s apps were. The apps were solid and didn’t need much upgrading: For example, I’d personally used her Replicator program across whole generations of Windows, up through Win10. Karen’s already-distributed apps and her PowerTools website lingered on via inertia, but were unmaintained. Her apps were initially available through Windows Magazine, but Karen later spun out her own side business of bundling and maintaining the apps for interested readers.īut, sadly, Karen died prematurely and a few years later, Windows Magazine shut down. Each month, the apps’ author, the late Karen Kenworthy, would identify an annoying little software problem or deficiency in Windows or its existing apps she’d then craft a small, focused, free utility that addressed the problem and then write a column about the problem, and how her free tool addressed it. Replicator was just one of dozens of high-quality Karen’s PowerTools apps. One of the most popular PowerTools was Replicator a clone/copy/sync tool that’s sort of like Robocopy with a point-and-click interface. Most of this article is about some free templates that can simplify your use of Robocopy - a free, powerful (but underappreciated) command-line copy/clone/sync tool that’s built into all current Windows version.īut before digging into Robocopy, please let me tell you about a related issue: The rise, fall, and partial re-rise of Karen’s PowerTools - a collection of free apps once offered through Windows Magazine. Plus: What happened to Karen’s PowerTools?
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