Use Robocopy to backup changed files

Robocopy.exe is the new copy tool delivered with Windows Vista. The previous windows copy tool XCOPY is marked as deprecated in Vista.
Robocopy is also delivered in the Resource Kit for Windows Server 2003 for free and works fine under Windows NT, 2000 and XP.
Following line performs intelligent backup of all files and subfolders contained in the source folder "data".

robocopy c:\data f:\backup /MIR

The option /MIR causes mirroring of the folders, which means only the files changed after the last run of the robocopy command are going to be copied to the backup folder. Subfolders and files created in the source folder after the last executing of the robocopy command will be also copied to the backup folder. And at least, all files deleted from the source folder since last run of the robocopy will also be deleted from the backup folder.

Robocopy is very fast and therefore it can be used to move large amount of data to the backup folder.

Since Vista's "Backup and Restore Center" doesnot allow backup of single directories, this tool might be very usefull to perform intelligent backup of single directories with no or very small effort.

/MIR is only one of all in all about 200 different switches supprted by robocopy. Call robocopy /? to see more details about robocopy options.