Computer & Windows

Hello technology crazier and today we're going to be doing less than four of the batch series. So if you haven't checked out any other other lessons, please check them out. They go over all the basics of batch programming or otherwise known as working in CMD. So today's lesson is going to be on copying and moving files and folders we're also going to be covered in some really cool tips and tricks to help you guys make really cool programs. So please step back and enjoy okay. So before you start want to, let you guys know that I'm going to be using a program called notepad plus plus, which is basically notepad on steroids. It'S a free program links will be in the description. 

I highly recommend that you use it, but of course you can also use notepad. So all the code will be in the description just in case you want to copy it. So what's the difference between copying and moving a file? Basically copying is duplicating the file. Moving. Is actually moving where the file is so if I were to copy this to the desktop it duplicated it. If I were to move it actually, let me copy it over the desktop. If I were to move it into this folder over here, it would actually go from the desktop into the folder. So that's the difference between copying and moving nice to keep in mind while using these commands so to start off, let's go with a deco off and then let's use the copy command copy command works like this. We type in copy we type in the source and we type in the destination, so the source is the file or folder that you want to copy. 

So, let's right click on the my program right here. I want to copy, let's find the location here which is under e, which is correct. We can also go up here and we can find out it's under e and it's called multiplay dot exe just like that, and the destination is where we want to copy the file to so, in this case the desktop. So, let's just click on anything on the desktop. Here we find out that the desktop is C slash. Users, slash Justin, slash desktop just like that. So that's all we have to do. Let'S pause it and run it here. We see one file copied and it did copy it over the desktop after you want to move a file very, very similar use, type move just like that run. It it'll move it from the usb on to the desktop okay. So, let's, let's have a little bit more fun. 

We can actually use it signed called X copy, which is a lot more cool than copy allows us to do a whole bunch more features. Now we're actually can have a look at it in the CMD here. So if we go and type in X, copy slash question mark, it will list all the different switches and everything for X copy. Let'S also go and find the copy command hoops. That was a fail just like that notice. That copy doesn't have, as many switches can't do as much as X copy, which is built into Windows as well. It has the ability to copy folders directories. All these really cool things has the ability to find the newest files and just copy the news files. So that's really cool so go and check out 2x copy. 

It'S a lot better. I recommend it. There'S there's some disadvantages and I'll show you how to get around that. So if we run the program here, you'll copy it to the desktop. If we run it again, it will ask us if we want to overwrite the file, and that is normally a really good idea. Let'S say you were making a program, you could actually overwrite a desktop or a whole folder, maybe even system32, by accident. So it is a good feature, but once you perfected your code, you don't want that a way to turn this off is using the Y switch, which is what I found in CMD by typing in X, copy slash question mark. I was able to find that Y will suppress the overwrite. So if we run this here now didn't ask us to overwrite it just automatically over it. So that's really cool. 

Let'S combine our knowledge to make something a little bit more cool, but first, let's cover one really important thing. If you want to run this program on more than one computer, it's really important to make this universal. So, for example, if I were to run this on my sister's computer, her username is not Justin, so it will definitely not work easy way to get by. This is use two percent signs and type in username. This works any time you need the user of the of the person, that's using the computer, so, for example, here it will replace username with the current user and to just double-check this, let's type in echo and username, just like that, so it'll copy the file to The desktop and I'll also type it also echo the user name. That'S logged on right now, which it worked here. It says one file copied and it says Justin and it actually did copy. 

So that's all good. Another really cool thing is, let's say, you're using a USB to copy files on to multiple different computers. Your USB knight nut might not always show up as E one easy way to fix, that is to go to percent signs and then CD, which is current directory, which you can use for programs too. It will basically use the current directory that this program is running in, so you can see here that video dot bat is actually running under e, so it'll take E and replace it with this right here, which is exactly what we want. We can run that and you can see here that it actually ran e at multi-plate exe. Now, let's combine all our knowledge to make a really cool program that might be actually useful to you. I in the summer I had to install home to programs on a whole bunch of laptops, so the easiest way did. 

This was make a really simple copy. All the programs I needed onto the desktop and then start them and then when they are done, delete them. So how I did this is I use 2x copy, then I did a start commands. I started the program that we just copied to the desktop just like this and I used multiplayer you so that will basically copy to the desktop and start it. So, let's try that so copied and started the program so now at this point I could actually remove my USB and it will run now after I wanted also to delete it. So let's say I did Dell for delete and let's delete the file here. You won't actually work and the reason why is because it's actually running the program while it's trying to delete it, which won't work the easy way around. This is instead of start, let's use line called call which will basically call the program into this program and it'll.