xcopy alternative for Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008 – ROBOCOPY

Robocopy – Robust File Copy for Windows is bundled with Windows Server 2008, Windows 7 and Vista. If you can not do something in xcopy, you probably can in robocopy. For example robocopy can:

  • resume on network error, specify number of Retries, etc.
  • ability to copy NTFS permissions and attributes including timestamps;
  • synchronize mode;
  • and a lot more.

Example, copy src_folder to dst_folder including sub-folders:
robocopy C:\src_folder C:\dst_folder /E

Help:
robocopy /?

More reading:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robocopy

VMware ESXi enable remote ssh access (unsupported)

To enable VMware ESXi 4.0 SSH (Windows Putty) access:

  • At physical console press ALT+F1. VMware ESXi banner will appear.
  • There is no prompt on the screen, but type ‘unsupported’ and press Enter.
  • Now at password prompt type root password.
  • You are logged in Linux console. Type:

vi /etc/inetd.conf

  • Locate line with commented SSH – ‘#ssh tcp …’, and uncomment it – delete ‘#’. (Press Insert to go into edit mode, delete ‘#’, press Esc to go back, type ‘:wq’ to save and quit.
  • Now you can restart server, or restart services using:

/sbin/services.sh restart

Tested on VMware ESXi 4.0.