Windows Cmd Prompt Help

**Tsen** · 03-10-2007 09:32 PM

Well, I've heard of a bunch of people installing Vista from a flash drive. Supposedly, because of faster read/write speeds, it makes the installation faster, but that's a moot point to me.
Anyway, they're using Window's command prompt to partition the USB drive and copy the installation DVD's content over to the drive using this command:

Code:

xcopy d&#58;&#092;*.* /s/e/f e&#58;&#092;

Now, I get most of that. Copies all files (*.*) from the DVD drive (d

to the flash drive (e

. However, I'm not sure what the flags are. What are the s, e, and f for?
Since I'm generally more comfortable in Linux, I was planning on replicating this whole bit into it's command prompt, which would mean something like

Code:

sudo cp /media/cd0/*.* /media/sd1/

But I don't know what flags the Linux version would need.

And while we're at it, is there any reason why I couldn't take the easy way out and just drag/drop the DVD's contents onto a blank partition? Including any hidden files/folders, that should work fine, right?

**Kaniaz** · 03-10-2007 09:56 PM

C:\Users\Kaniaz>xcopy /? | find "/S"
/S Copies directories and subdirectories except empty ones.
Same as /S /E. May be used to modify /T.

C:\Users\Kaniaz>xcopy /? | find "/E"
/E Copies directories and subdirectories, including empty ones.
Same as /S /E. May be used to modify /T.
include empty directories or subdirectories. /T /E includes

C:\Users\Kaniaz>xcopy /? | find "/F"
/F Displays full source and destination file names while copying.

To be honest, it would probably be less bother if you just installed it from a CD/DVD. I would recommend that, but I'm pretty sure you're pirating it anyway, no?

**Tsen** · 03-10-2007 10:28 PM

Hehe, yeah. And no DVD burner.

I'd buy it, but I'm broke, so it's going to have to wait.
Thanks for the help though. The MS command prompt always confused me.

**Tsen** · 03-11-2007 05:10 AM

Well, seems my computer doesn't want to boot from the second partition on my external hard drive, and moving the data on the hard drive was too much of a pain, so...
Long story short, I'm playing with Window's AIK to create a spanned distribution and putting it on CD's instead of DVDs. It's been educational, and rather amusing in a lot of ways. No, it isn't the smart, or easy, or legal way to do things, but I get a kick out of it. Plus, it's got my mom rolling her eyes and seriously considering permanently branding a "P" for pirate on me, which just makes the whole thing worth the kicks and giggles.

Thread: Windows Cmd Prompt Help

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