Copying files with permissions

Question

We have a new Windows 2008 server and want to transfer over our old files. Tried using Robocopy with /E /SEC /COPYALL, but did not do anything, RichCopy copies the files between the computers but does not maintain the permissions. Any ideas?

score 3 · Accepted Answer · answered Aug 31 '09 at 20:52

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Maybe the user that run the command don't have permission on the destination server to create the files with the permissions needed.
Make sure that the root directory at the destination is not configure to inherit its permission to new files.
Maybe there are permissions/ownership in the source for local users. So they don't exist on the destination directory.

Run the copy from the destination.

answered Aug 31 '09 at 20:52

Igal Serban

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If there are permissions issues then the /B (Backup Mode) switch may also be needed. – Helvick Aug 31 '09 at 21:58
This was correct, strange seeing as we were using Domain Admin account. – Terry Sep 01 '09 at 18:02

score 1 · Answer 2 · answered Aug 31 '09 at 20:19

1

Maybe just the wrong order in your command line? Here's a working example from a batch file:

 robocopy C:\backup.0 C:\backup.1 /COPYALL /E

/COPYALL preserves attributes, security, timestamps
/E is a recursive copy

Edit: Wikipedia has some examples and explanations of switches available here (probably where my co-worker sourced his batch file examples from too).

answered Aug 31 '09 at 20:19

djhowell

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I've been using robocopy since it was first released and have never observed a problem resulting from the order of the parameters. My understanding is that, like any well written software, the parameters are parsed completely before processing starts. – John Gardeniers Aug 31 '09 at 21:52

score 0 · Answer 3 · answered Sep 01 '09 at 18:00

The answer is: We did the RoboCopy from the old server.. yet it was still too slow. Permissions had something to do with it despite the fact that we were logging in with Domain Administrator. In the end we will probably use backup exec for this massive transition. Thanks all.

Copying files with permissions

3 Answers3