Copy ALL Files and Folders Excluding Hidden or System Files

Question

Hi,

Initially I was using following VB code to copy directory (with all files and sub-directories etc.)

Dim src_UsersFolder = "C:\myData\"
           Dim dst_UsersBackup = "D:\Backup\" 
           My.Computer.FileSystem.CopyDirectory(src_UsersFolder, dst_UsersBackup, overwrite:=True) 

But eventually I received error message(s) if any file or folder is protected /hidden /System Files etc.

Then I changed the design and used Windows 10 built-in command line tool XCOPY

xcopy C:\myData  D:\Backup /E /C /I /Y /Q /J

And excluded the /H flag (that copies hidden and system files also).

Unluckily, XCOPY didn't worked as it should be as "Insufficient Memory" error occurred.
Upon searching, I could found some suggestions to avoid this insufficient memory error like how-to-fix-out-of-memory-error but this didn't helped either.
Question is can we take help from VB.Net to exclude the system /hidden files and ignore the files /folder longer than 254 characters which seems to be Windows maximum path length.

Answer 1

Hello @~OSD~

Have you considered something like a recursive method? The following was taken and slightly modified from here. One improvement would be to wrap the code in with asynchronous task if the folder is large and you want the front end to remain responsive.

Class

Imports System.IO  
  
Public Class FileDirectoryOperations  
    Public Delegate Sub OnErrorDelegate(exception As Exception)  
    Public Shared Event OnErrorEvent As OnErrorDelegate  
    Public Shared Sub CopyFolder(sourcePath As String, destinationPath As String)  
  
        Dim sourceDirectoryInfo As New DirectoryInfo(sourcePath)  
  
        If (sourceDirectoryInfo.Attributes And FileAttributes.Hidden) = FileAttributes.Hidden OrElse  
           (sourceDirectoryInfo.Attributes And FileAttributes.System) = FileAttributes.System OrElse  
           (sourceDirectoryInfo.Attributes And FileAttributes.ReparsePoint) = FileAttributes.ReparsePoint Then  
            Exit Sub  
  
        Else  
            ' If the destination folder don't exist then create it  
            If Not Directory.Exists(destinationPath) Then  
                Directory.CreateDirectory(destinationPath)  
            End If  
  
            Dim fileSystemInfo As FileSystemInfo  
  
            Try  
                For Each fileSystemInfo In sourceDirectoryInfo.GetFileSystemInfos  
  
                    If (fileSystemInfo.Attributes And FileAttributes.Hidden) = FileAttributes.Hidden OrElse  
                       (fileSystemInfo.Attributes And FileAttributes.System) = FileAttributes.System Then  
                        Continue For  
  
                    Else  
                        Dim destinationFileName As String = Path.Combine(destinationPath, fileSystemInfo.Name)  
                        If TypeOf fileSystemInfo Is FileInfo Then  
                            File.Copy(fileSystemInfo.FullName, destinationFileName, True)  
                        Else  
                            CopyFolder(fileSystemInfo.FullName, destinationFileName)  
                        End If  
  
                    End If  
                Next  
  
            Catch ex As Exception  
                RaiseEvent OnErrorEvent(ex)  
            End Try  
  
        End If  
  
    End Sub  
  
End Class  

Event for errors in form

Handle the error as you see fit

Private Sub OnCopyError(exception As Exception)  
  
End Sub  

Add this in form load or shown event

AddHandler FileDirectoryOperations.OnErrorEvent, AddressOf OnCopyError  

Call

FileDirectoryOperations.CopyFolder("C:\myData", "D:\Backup")  

Answer 2

Thanks for input karen, will check this out.

Will it "skip" or "ignore" the long file names and paths (longer than 254 characters)?