RichCopy is a free computer utility program developed by Ken Tamaru of Microsoft Corporation to copy file directories. It performs more quickly and avoids pitfalls commonly found with the conventional 'copy' and 'paste' commands in the Windows operating system

Operating system

An operating system is a set of programs that manage computer hardware resources and provide common services for application software. The operating system is the most important type of system software in a computer system...

. Additionally, while having some similarities with the Microsoft utility, Robocopy

Robocopy

Robocopy, or "Robust File Copy", is a command-line directory replication command. It has been available as part of the Windows Resource Kit starting with Windows NT 4.0, and was introduced as a standard feature of Windows Vista, Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008...

, it provides a full-blown graphical user interface

Graphical user interface

In computing, a graphical user interface is a type of user interface that allows users to interact with electronic devices with images rather than text commands. GUIs can be used in computers, hand-held devices such as MP3 players, portable media players or gaming devices, household appliances and...

 (GUI), whereas Robocopy is a command-line utility.

Features

• Copies several files simultaneously ('multi-threaded'), which can drastically reduce the time required for multi-gigabyte file transfers and backups.
• In contrast to simple Windows copy
  Copy (command)
  In computing, copy is a command in RT-11, RSX-11, OpenVMS, DOS, OS/2 and Microsoft Windows operating systems. The command copies computer files from one directory to another. The destination defaults to the current working directory. If more than one source file is indicated, the destination must...
  
   commands and the program Robocopy
  Robocopy
  Robocopy, or "Robust File Copy", is a command-line directory replication command. It has been available as part of the Windows Resource Kit starting with Windows NT 4.0, and was introduced as a standard feature of Windows Vista, Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008...
  
  , a graphical user interface makes complicated backup operations easier.

Criticisms

• There are bugs that have not been fixed. RichCopy is best utilized by experienced users who know how to verify that copy operations have completed successfully without errors.
• RichCopy is not supported by Microsoft. The program has not been updated since approximately June 2009, despite numerous users clamoring for bug fixes.

Versions

	File version	Year	Origin
4.0	4.0.217	2009

See also

• Robocopy
  Robocopy
  Robocopy, or "Robust File Copy", is a command-line directory replication command. It has been available as part of the Windows Resource Kit starting with Windows NT 4.0, and was introduced as a standard feature of Windows Vista, Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008...
  
  
• copy (command)
  Copy (command)
  In computing, copy is a command in RT-11, RSX-11, OpenVMS, DOS, OS/2 and Microsoft Windows operating systems. The command copies computer files from one directory to another. The destination defaults to the current working directory. If more than one source file is indicated, the destination must...
  
  
• XCOPY
  XCOPY
  In computing, Xcopy is a command used on PC DOS, MS-DOS, OS/2, Microsoft Windows, and related operating systems for copying multiple files or entire directory trees from one directory to another and for copying files across a network...
  
  
• Teracopy
  Teracopy
  TeraCopy is a software application that moves or copies computer files.- Design :TeraCopy uses dynamically adjusted buffers to reduce seek times. Asynchronous copy speeds up file transfer between two physical hard drives...
  
  
• rsync
  Rsync
  rsync is a software application and network protocol for Unix-like and Windows systems which synchronizes files and directories from one location to another while minimizing data transfer using delta encoding when appropriate. An important feature of rsync not found in most similar...
  
  
• SyncToy
  SyncToy
  SyncToy is a freeware tool in Microsoft's PowerToys series that provides an easy-to-use graphical user interface for synchronizing files and folders. It is written using Microsoft's .NET framework and uses the Microsoft Sync Framework.-Features:...
  
  

External links

• Official sources
  • Microsoft TechNet Magazine -- Free Utility: RichCopy, an Advanced Alternative To Robocopy
  • TechNet Blog of RichCopy developer Ken Tamaru
  • TechNet - Command-line Reference - ROBOCOPY

• Other
  • TechNet Blog of Keith Combs describes advantages of using RichCopy and WinRAR
    WinRAR
    WinRAR is a shareware file archiver and data compression utility developed by Eugene Roshal, and first released in autumn of 1993. It is one of the few applications that is able to create RAR archives natively, because the encoding method is held to be proprietary.-Developer:The current developer...
    
    to transfer multiple large files simultaneously.
  • RichCopy How-To Guide
  • Five Best Alternative File Copiers