Copy Handler: free software to copy and move files

Yes, I want to port Copy Handler to Linux. However it is quite a huge task, so do not expect it to happen quickly (it could take years with the current pace of development).

There were some problems in the past and they were fixed. For now there are no reports about such situations.
Note however, that Copy Handler won't protect you from shooting yourself in the foot - so be sure what you are doing.

Most probably you have moved files not to a real network share as you planned, but to a directory on a local disk which is interpreted by system as a link to a network share).

See the screenshots to see the difference between real network share and the shortcut:

Real network share: Window with real network share along with the properties of the share.

Shortcut to a network share: Window shows how the shortcut to a network share look like. Note the different property sheet window when compared to a one from real network share.

Directory with the shortcut: And here's the real location for the shortcut.

What you see in the third screenshot is the location containing directory acting as shortcut, which in turn contains some files (at least physically on disk, because if you use Windows explorer to enter inside, you will be redirected to the location the link points to). See the contents of the local directory for such shortcut:

Shortcut directory contents: Screenshot with the real contents of the directory acting as a network share link. Note the ABCdefTest.txt file that has been accidentially moved here.

Now, how to get those file back?
There are at least two possibilities:

• If you are proficient with using command line utilities in Windows, you could use cmd.exe to browse to the shortcut directory and get those files back,
• Download some file manager (e.g. FreeCommander) to browse to the shortcut directory and just get those files back

Usually you can try to play with the buffer size (task properties or options) - it is up to you how to do it, because there is no official guide. In the future, manual buffer size settings will be replaced with automatic ones.

There is one more tip - if you are an owner of Windows XP 64-bit or later, or Vista 32-bit or later, you could try to:

• change the Copy Handler option "Disable buffering for large files" to "No". It defaults to "Yes", which works better on older systems.
• change option "Use only default buffer" to "Yes",
• change option "Default buffer size" to a lower value (512kB? 256kB? You need to experiment with it).

Note that it's not recommended to change those values for Windows XP 32-bit or earlier, because of expected performance issues.

Menu items (Move To, Copy To, Copy/Move To special) that appear in explorer context menu get their contents from the Copy Handler configuration - to be precise from the "Shortcuts" section.

Initially the shortcut section is empty in Copy Handler and so the menus are grayed out.

To show some entries there, you have to define the paths that should appear there. Go to the CH options dialog, find the "Shortcuts" section and double click the "Defined shortcuts' count" to open the dialog box where you can define the shortcuts. After adding some paths close the dialog and apply in the configuration dialog.

Now you should see the paths under Copy To/Move To menu items in explorer.