Vista: Copied files grow indefinitely,

You copy files from your Vista computer, like you have since DOS, Windows 95, 98, ME, 2000, XP and the servers, (NT, 2000, 2003, 2003 R2). For example, you copy from the source drive C: to the target drive (backup drive) D:

To your amazement, the files "grow" A 100G drive copies 400G, and keeps going.

Look at what's on the target drive.

C:\Users\Don\AppData\Local\Application Data\Application Data\Application Data\Application Data\Application Data\Application Data\Application Data\Application Data\Application Data\Application Data\Application Data\Application Data\Application Data\Application Data\Application Data\Application Data\Application Data\Application Data\Application Data\Application Data\Application Data\Application Data\Application Data\Application Data\Application Data\

We have always used ROBOCOPY. It's very powerful. Some people find it difficult, because the command line reference is pages long. However, robocopy is one of the most powerful utilities ever.... We worked out a decent set of switches and we routinely use it for backup. Properly used (per the 35 page doc) it never fails.

This "looping" problem happens with Robocopy, every time. On one copy, we made a continuous loop 16 layers deep before we cancelled the backup. The issue also happens with lots of other programs that copy files. Here's a related story.

http://www.usatoday.com/tech/columnist/andrewkantor/2007-03-02-vista-problems_N.htm

Why? What is going on?

Sometimes, people change things without thinking it through. A good example is The US Government changing the Daylight Savings Time rules. It accomplished nothing substantial and is only "different." They changed it because they could....

In this case, Microsoft has been less intelligent about Vista than our government is about the clocks. They used a technology because they could.... Not because it was better, only different. I can hear it now. "It's a cool solution."

The dummies used a JUNCTION to force Vista to be "compatible" with older applications. Older applications expect C:\documents and settings\USERNAME\Local\Application Data. Vista expects C:\User\USERNAME\Local\AppData. To make the older application work, Microsoft uses a JUNCTION to make AppData "mimic" Application Data.

So, Some genius thought it was worth saving 8 characters in a path to introduce a world class bug in many applications, including Microsoft's robocopy. Stupid.

They should have kept the consistency. But they didn't, and we have to deal with it.

JK Tech's Robocopy solution. Add the /XJ switch to the robocopy command line.  The XJ stands for eXclude Junctions. 

C:\robocopy.exe SOURCE DESTINATION /zb /e /r:1 /w:1 /XJ /LOG:TARGETLOGFILE.txt

The Vista version of Robocopy has the /XJ turned on by default.  So, somebody knew it was a bug....