Batch, .vbs or something else???

Hello all

Typically I dont get much involved on the programming side of life but sometimes I need to tinker, like now. I needed to copy the contents of a Thunderbird email folder to a different drive. I made this batch and scheduled it to run as a Windows task. The folder is a few gigs and was taking far too long by typical graphical backup means, which is why I turned to xcopy.

echo off
cd \
cd windows\system32
start /min xcopy "%appdata%\Thunderbird\*.*" "Q:\test2\" /e /Y /h /c /i /r
exit

I would like to have this execute when the PC turns off. I think if I had a .vbs script with this (I dont know vbs) I could dump it into
C:\WINDOWS\System32\GroupPolicy\User\Scripts\Logoff and then use a local group policy to run it. My main goal is to have this one particular folder get copied daily and without user awareness. Any thoughts or different ideas would greatly be appreciated.

Thanks in advance,

nfv

 

The vbs code would be

Code:

Set shell=CreateObject("WScript.Shell")
dq=chr(34)
shell.run("windows\system32\xcopy "&dq&"%appdata%\Thunderbird\*.*"&dq&" "&dq&"Q:\test2\"&dq&" /e /Y /h /c /i /r",0)

The 0 will make it run in the background. If you want it to run normally, remove the 0 and the comma before it. You could also use vbs itself to copy the files, like

Code:

Set fSys = CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject")
'This part of the code would not be needed if you removed appdata& from the last line and edited the path to be the absolute path to the directory.
'This code finds the environment entry %appdata%
Set shell=CreateObject("WScript.Shell")
appdata=""
on error resume next
For Each strEnv In shell.Environment("PROCESS")
 a=split(strEnv,"=",-1,1)
 if lcase(a(0))="appdata":appdata=a(1):exit for
next
on error goto 0
if appdata="" then wscript.echo("ERROR: %appdata% can't be found."):wscript.quit
'end of %appdata% finder
fSys.CopyFile(appdata&"\Thunderbird\*.*","Q:\test2\",true)

That will overwrite files of the same name in Q:\test2\ If you don't want that, change true to false.

 

Sorry, I left out the home backslash in the first code. It should be

Code:

Set shell=CreateObject("WScript.Shell")
dq=chr(34)
shell.run("\windows\system32\xcopy "&dq&"%appdata%\Thunderbird\*.*"&dq&" "&dq&"Q:\test2\"&dq&" /e /Y /h /c /i /r",0)

Also, I missed the /E switch in the xcopy command, so the second one should be (changing the last line)

Code:

Set fSys = CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject")
'This part of the code would not be needed if you removed appdata& from the last line and edited the path to be the absolute path to the directory.
'This code finds the environment entry %appdata%
Set shell=CreateObject("WScript.Shell")
appdata=""
on error resume next
For Each strEnv In shell.Environment("PROCESS")
 a=split(strEnv,"=",-1,1)
 if lcase(a(0))="appdata":appdata=a(1):exit for
next
on error goto 0
if appdata="" then wscript.echo("ERROR: %appdata% can't be found."):wscript.quit
'end of %appdata% finder
fSys.CopyFolder(appdata&"\Thunderbird","Q:\test2\",true)

to copy subfolders also, overwriting existing files. I am not sure about whether this is similar to the /c switch. It may stop if there is an error. It is possible to write something that won't stop for an error, but it is more complicated. It parses the directory tree and copies each file individually.

 

Hey thanks for the responses. I am playing now.

I get a syntax error when I run

Set shell=CreateObject("WScript.Shell")
dq=chr(34)
shell.run("\windows\system32\xcopy "&dq&"%appdata%\Thunderbird\*.*"&dq&" "&dq&"Q:\test2\"&dq&" /e /Y /h /c /i /r",0)

On line 3 it says cannot use parantheses when calling a sub

 

Sorry. That should be:

Code:

Set shell=CreateObject("WScript.Shell")
dq=chr(34)
shell.run "\windows\system32\xcopy "&dq&"%appdata%\Thunderbird\*.*"&dq&" "&dq&"Q:\test2\"&dq&" /e /Y /h /c /i /r",0

 

that did it, thanks so much