Copying Files That Are In Use

Don't waste your time with Robocopy or Hobocopy or any such tools. They do NOT truly copy files that are in use !!

Robocopy will in fact give you an error message saying that the file is in use by another process .... crap !!! Yet it is hailed as a utility that can copy files that are in use.

Go ahead and disbelieve me.. Lol ! in fact, go ahead and download your Robocopy, Hobocopy, or Hoffman Utility SpotLight, after you download it just open a file in some program which locks its files once open, or better still, just go into your windows XP/Vista temp folder and find some flaXXX.tmp files (flash objects/videos that are currently in use by your browser .... so u have to have your browser running duh.. play some video from YouTube and check for the flaXXX.tmp files in your temp folder ) I know for a fact that the adobe Flash Player will lock its temporary flash files (.swf files that are currently playing through the flashplayer plugin of your browser.. yes they will be named as flaXXX.tmp files while they're playing in your browser)

Now my friend.. go ahead and COPY those flaXXXX.tmp files.... use Robocop (or is it Robocopy), Hobocopy, or Hoffman Utility SpotLight, or "whatever" you have... you will NOT be able to copy those files.. period !!!! :))

Ok, now the name of the program which can truly copy files that are in use... here it is :

Use a program from NovaStor Corporation,

The program's name is NovaBackup

This program will copy files that are in use perfectly

I am done !

Haha... were u expecting some affiliate links or what ? Nope, none of that here.. you can find NovaBackup yourself :) I am NOT selling or even interested in selling this NovaBackup thing. I am mentioning it to help you if you have "suffered" from the issue of trying to copy files in use and you've tried everything and all things failed !!!

With NovaBackup, unfortunately you will have to Backup the files, either individually or the entire folder... then RESTORE your backup to a different location ... Vollla !!! U've achieved a mysterious in-use-file copy (NovaBackup is UNSTOPPABLE on this job!!).

Don't waste your time with Robocopy or Hobocopy or Hoffman-bla-bla.. or any such tools. They do NOT truly copy files that are in use !! They just fail and give u the DAMN SAME errors about the file being "in use" YET they all claim they can copy files that are in use ... DISAPPOINTING!!!




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Follow up June 2011 !!!

Hi Guys... I found a way to get over this problem !!! AFTER spending the whole YEAR on this issue, I found THE SOLUTION. I must first apologize for the above post, where I am saying Hobocopy does Not work,etc, lol !! I don't believe in DELETING wrong thins that I wrote earlier or incorrect information that I shared with people earlier. I believe in HONESTLY apologizing for any wrong info I shared or propagated in the past :))

So I apologize for the above original post, where I am saying Hobocopy/Robocopy does Not work,etc, lol !! Not true at all.

Ok, this method below worked fantastically for me


cls
net start vss
md C:\InUseFiles
md C:\InUseFiles\FlashVidTemp
xcopy "C:\Documents and Settings\Admin\Local Settings\Temp" "C:\InUseFiles\FlashVidTemp" /e /c /i /h /r /y
md C:\InUseFiles\FlashVid
move /y C:\InUseFiles\FlashVidTemp\fla*.tmp C:\InUseFiles\FlashVid
rd /s /q C:\InUseFiles\FlashVidTemp
start explorer C:\InUseFiles\FlashVid
exit



Yes, I must admit this example above requires a little knowledge of using the Command Line (DOS Prompt / CMD.exe)

You can take these commands above and drop them into a DOS Batch File (.bat) if you know anything about batch files. Then you can run them all at once by running the batch file, however you'd have to change the names of folders on each line to reflect the appropriate folders/directories/paths that you want to work with.

In this example above, you can see that I am copying the Windows Temp folder , which typically has a LOT of FILES-IN-USE , but you can notice that I also first START THE VOLUME SHADOW SERVICE, then After copying ALL the whole TEMP folder I actually MOVE away some of the files I am interested in ... I move them to another folder "FlashVid" , and then I simply delete the FlashVidTemp folder (which is a copy of the Temp folder) to clean up. What I remain with, is the FlashVid folder, which contains the Fla*.tmp files which are ALWAYS-IN-USE when you try to copy them.. but this little trick WORKS ALL THE TIME.

I think the WHOLE POWER OF IT lies in STARTING the VOLUME SHADOW SERVICE (VSS).

Thank You !

Keywords :
Copying Youtube Videos from the cache
Copying Video files from the cache
Copying Video files after viewing them on Youtube
Streaming Videos Copy them from browser cache