Why doesn't Windows 2000 ask me to confirm file overwrite?

[Muse]

Suddenly, it doesn't ask me to confirm that I want to replace a file with a newer version. I don't see the option and I didn't change any options, anyway. Thanks.

 

[keeleysam]

Tools -> Folder Options.

 

[Muse]

Originally posted by: keeleysam
Tools -> Folder Options.

Yeah, I'd looked in there but didn't see anything. Any particular setting in there you're thinking of?

 

[jaykleg]

Open a CMD prompt and type "set" (no quotes" and hit Enter. Do you see an environment variable "COPYCMD=/Y" in the listing? If so, that would explain it. You're talking about the use of COPY, MOVE, and XCOPY not asking you if you want to overwrite, correct? Eliminate that environment variable, and you eliminate the behavior you're reporting.

I know about this because I've used it before to force that behavior. How it would get in there without you (or someone else) putting it there is beyond me. Maybe some software installation did it?

 

[Muse]

Originally posted by: jaykleg
Open a CMD prompt and type "set" (no quotes" and hit Enter. Do you see an environment variable "COPYCMD=/Y" in the listing? If so, that would explain it. You're talking about the use of COPY, MOVE, and XCOPY not asking you if you want to overwrite, correct? Eliminate that environment variable, and you eliminate the behavior you're reporting.

I know about this because I've used it before to force that behavior. How it would get in there without you (or someone else) putting it there is beyond me. Maybe some software installation did it?

I don't see that environment variable. The funny thing is it doesn't generally happen. I have a parttime telecommute job for which I periodically (weekly, sometimes less often) copy data from a client's network to a directory on my HD using pcAnywhere. Once in the directory on my HD, I move the data to a directory called ..\DATA, overwriting files in there. I always get a dialog asking me if I want to overwrite existing files. However, the last two times I did this I didn't get the dialog, and that's why I started this thread. I didn't fully explain, but I just did. Anybody have a take on this? Thanks!

 

[jaykleg]

We'll probably need more information. How (exactly) are you attempting to move the files? Please spare no details. In other words, are you using Windows Explorer or copy / move commands at the CLI? If using Windows Explorer are you using drag and drop, right-click context menu, toolbar buttons, file menu choices, Ctrl key combinations?

When you moved the files to the ..\DATA directory was pcAnywhere still up and running? (What I'm wondering here is if pcAnywhere is putting a temporary COPYCMD=/Y variable in the environment. If it were doing this when it is launched (or when it performing a particular function) it would be equivalent to entering the command

set copycmd=/y

at the CLI. If so it might leave the variable there, in which case the variable would remain there until the user account logged off then logged on again. Or it might remove the variable as in

set compycmd=

when it stops performing a function or when the program is quit. With a little testing you should be able to see whether or not this is happening.

When you say that this happens sometimes, and doesn't happen other times, it begins to sound more as though it could be a USER environment variable that is being set temporarily rather than a SYSTEM environment variable.

If this is happening to you in Explorer I'm not sure about it, but I would think default Explorer behavior in this regard might be altered in the registry.

 

[Muse]

It was between transfers for me, but I just did another one to test and see what's going on. I made a backup of the ..\DATA directory so I could repeat the process if necessary. This time it didn't happen. Don't know what to think. My process is to select a file, go Control+A to select all files in the folder with the transferred files, and then drag and drop them on the ..\DATA folder. No problem this time....

Maybe I hadn't closed down the pcAnywhere session the former two times, although I wouldn't imagine that would have had an impact.

 

[jaykleg]

Hmmm. Well, I guess I should have asked those questions earlier. I was thinking that you were performing the copying from the command line interface. AFAIK the COPYCMD environment variable doesn't affect the overwrite warning given by Explorer. This still doesn't mean, of course, that PCAnywhere isn't involved in this in some way, though how it would actually implement the change in behavior by Explorer I wouldn't know.. I imagine that, with a little judicious experimentation, you can find a way to duplicate the symptom reliably and thereby know whether or not PCAnywhere is responsible for what you're seeing.