Comments on: How to simulate "No to all" when copying in Windows XP

By: John Haggis

John Haggis — Fri, 09 Jul 2010 20:30:44 +0000

I have Windows XP Professional SP3 and Shift-NO does NOT work in the “Confirm File Replace” window in the Scanner and Camera Wizard transfer process, at least the automatic process that comes up when you plug the camera into the USB. Is the Scanner and Camera Wizard engine different from the rest of Windows XP?

By: John Preston

John Preston — Sat, 03 Jul 2010 21:23:32 +0000

For those like “Richard Potter”, who may have an external drive connected, and are happy to manually backup the My Documents folder and sub-folders, you can use XCOPY (from the Command Prompt).

It’s more fiddly than point and click, but – with care – can do the job fine. Those of use who grew up with command-line interfaces have such ancient techniques as an interesting fallback.

(I don’t want to be held responsible for screw-ups, and there are quite a few command switches to XCOPY, but here is an example: (include the quotes))

xcopy “d:\My Documents” “g:\my docs backup\” /S /F /-Y /d /V

Use HELP XCOPY to learn what the switches do, and don’t forget that file deletion from the source folder will need to be mirrored manually in the destination folder.

By: pringles

pringles — Thu, 01 Jul 2010 20:52:38 +0000

How do can make button “No to all” and remove yes to all to shift. No to all button is better

By: Andy

Andy — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 01:59:24 +0000

Thanks so much–a huge time saver!

By: Anon

Anon — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 12:39:10 +0000

Grande dica, valeu ai!

By: Don

Don — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 17:07:02 +0000

No way!!! I can’t believe I never knew this. This is great. Instead of having to click No a hundred times, just hold down Shift! What a miracle!

By: Devon

Devon — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 19:44:08 +0000

@Dallas – I’m not sure if you are doing it wrong, have a bad version of Windows, or have software that over-rides hotkeys (or somehow otherwise shut off hotkeys), but it works fine for me in Windows XP SP2.

By: Devon

Devon — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 19:41:24 +0000

Unfortunately, it will also say “no” to any folders you are copying, which would be great except I’d like to transfer new and/or non-duplicate files into those sub-folders at the same time.

Does Windows have any procedure for this type of transfer?

By: Dallas

Dallas — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 16:48:59 +0000

It does not work. I pressed and held Shift and clicked No but it still prompted me on the next file and all the files after that.

By: Richard Potter

Richard Potter — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 01:38:22 +0000

This works for files, but not for folders. I would like to globally copy My Documents folder onto an external hard drive where I have already copied it, but just lay out the new files into the subdirectories of the same name. When I hit Shift No at the Confirm Folder Replace, it skips that folder entirely, instead of adding the files that exist in the source but not in the target.

By: Devon V

Devon V — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 03:40:53 +0000

Wow, I wish I knew this one years ago, it would have saved me a lot of pain (aka “wasted time”). Well, it’ll certainly save me from future pain related to this.

By: Möö

Möö — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 17:37:44 +0000

Uhh, that’s just sick it’s hidden under shift… good job, Microsoft!

Thanks, mate

By: Stephen

Stephen — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 13:19:03 +0000

Thanks a million. Have been frustrated by this shortcoming for years! Never thought to query it till now. Very glad I did. Can’t believe it’s so easy.

By: Marta

Marta — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 09:55:50 +0000

Nice; but what if “Yes to all” is missing!?

(problem: Copy one file in hundreds of (sub)folders and overwrite without asking)

Thanks

By: Steve Nix

Steve Nix — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 01:27:02 +0000

Just used a tip for NO to ALL when copying in Windows XP… very helpful…. had mutiple files from a camera (talking 1000s of pictures) and of course it kept using the same naming convention when uploading… example picture001, picture002, etc… nevertheless this tip help me get them consolidated into mutiple batches so my wife can get printed. Thanks!!! Steve