Copy open files over network

Question

Copy open files over network- I have a situation where I ahve to copy the entire contents of a user's hard disk over the remotely over the local network and silently. I am concerned about open files the user might have. Is there a free software or method that I can use to be able to copy the hard disk of the user?

Answer 1

If you're talking about Windows clients you might hack around with the script that Tomalack posted here. Be aware that copying open files may give you inconsistent copies unless the application holding the file open is able to quiesce its IO and put it's files into a consistent state on demand... say, when VSS tells it that a snapshot is being initiated.

Edit: There's some more background on using VSS to create mountable volumes here: http://blogs.msdn.com/adioltean/archive/2006/09/18/761515.aspx. Good luck finding the DOSDEV.EXE referenced in the post, though.