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Windows Tip: Simulate "No to All" in file copy dialog

by Brad Linder on April 11, 2008 at 05:00 PM

When you try to copy a group of files from one folder to another, Windows will bring up a handy little window if it notices files in the target directory with the same name as files from the source directory. You can manually choose which files to overwrite or leave be one by one. Or you can click "Yes to All" to effectively overwrite every file with a duplicate name in the target directory.

But what if you want to click "No to All?" There's no button for you, but that doesn't mean Windows won't let you skip all the duplicate files. All you have to do is hold down the Shift key and click No. Now Windows will skip all files with duplicate names and copy the rest of your files to the new directory, thus saving you a lot of time, heartache, and repetitive finger motions.

[via Online Tech Tips and Tech Xpress]

Tags: confirm-file-replace, copy, howtos, no-to-all, yes-to-all

Comments

Jeff GoebelApr 14th 2008 8:23AM

Neutral

HOLY WOW BATMAN!

People ask me all the time, what do I think about Vista. My honest answer is that the ONLY thing that Vista does better than Windows XP is that it has a NO TO ALL on the file copy. If I had read this last year, I could have saved myself a lot of upgrade frustrations.

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kubiakApr 14th 2008 6:42PM

Neutral

I miss DOS commands

Retry, Skip, yes to all, no to all

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Rajib GhoshApr 15th 2008 2:41PM

Neutral

Typical M$.
All actually useful features are hidden. They either require you to buy a 'Secrets' book or keep yourself abreast on a daily basis with blogs like this.

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SuperevilApr 16th 2008 7:26AM

Neutral

haha I just posted something relating to this on engadget cause of XP Sp3 coming out. Itd be nice if MS added this function to XP with this new SP but that'll never happen.

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