Re: Correction to ZIP: Mass Removal of Archive Bit on All Directories

[Patricia M Godfrey pmgodfrey@xxxxxxxx]

What I meant (sorry about being unclear) was that copying files with the
XCOPY /m switch does not seem to be affected by the archive attribute of
the directory one way or the other.

What Robert says about not being able to use XCOPY for one's system is,
of course, perfectly true. I gather that with OS/2, one can back up one's
system files. Lucky OS/2 users. But the whole point about Windows is that
backing it--and Win32-native apps--up is pretty much an exercise in
futility. Not merely does BBG not want you to do so, and make it as hard
as possible, but sooner or later you're going to HAVE to reinstall the
whole ruddy thing. It morphs. So the essential thing, for me at least, is
to make sure my data are safe. Hence my insistence on a partitioned hard
drive (so DOS apps [drive d:], data [drive e:], and downloads [drive f:]
will not be affected when I have to FDISK C:). And hence my need for a
quick and dirty was to back up those drives to CD (or ZIPs). And XCOPY
does that nicely.

Yes, I know there are various utils that will "backup" Windows and
applications. But they all use some kind of nonnative format and require
that you reinstall, at least to some point, to get them back. If I'm
going to have to do that, I might as well redo my whole setup, changing
things that I've discovered, along the way, aren't working they way I
thought they would. Until I can reinstall Windows and its apps with a
simple command, they way I can XCOPIED DOS apps and data, it's just not
worth it to me. Especially as Windows really NEEDs that periodic
reinstall to clean out the detritus it accumulates. But others may think
otherwise. It depends on what one needs and what one values more.

By the bye, that's why I will NOT touch XP.
Patricia