Copy Attributes

The options on this page control which file attributes are copied (or preserved) when you copy files in Directory Opus. These options can all be overridden at the command level by supplying different parameters to the Copy command.

• Clear read-only flag when copying from CDs: Files that reside on CDs and DVDs are implicitly read-only, and normally this attribute is preserved when you copy these files. If this option is on, the R attribute will be cleared when these files are copied. This can be overridden by the CLEARREADONLY argument to the Copy command.
   
• Copy metadata: Copies file metadata that is stored in an NTFS Alternate Data Stream (ADS). This metadata is things like comments, tags, rating information and labels. This only applies to metadata that is stored in a separate data stream - for example, Office documents store this information as part of the file itself, and so this metadata would always be copied anyway. Turning this option on may make the file copy process slightly slower. This can be overridden by the COPYPROPERTIES argument to the Copy command.
   
• Copy all NTFS data streams: If Copy metadata is enabled, this causes Opus to copy all data streams contained in the file, not just the metadata ones.
   
• Copy owner: This option copies file owner information. Normally newly copied files will be owned by the user making the copy, but with this option on they would be owned by the owner of the original file. Because setting the file owner requires elevation under Vista / Windows 7, this will cause a UAC prompt to be displayed if the original owner is not the current user. You can opt to do this on Local drives only if desired. This can be overridden by the COPYOWNER argument to the Copy command.
   
• Copy security permissions: This copies the original files security permissions - when turned off, the copied file will inherit the permissions of the target folder. This setting can be overridden by the COPYSECURITY option to the Copy command.
   
• Copy sparse files as sparse: Sparse files are a special feature of the NTFS file system that allows regions of a file to be marked as "empty" (containing all zero bytes) and have them not occupy space on the disk. For example, a 1GB file consisting of all zeroes could actually occupy no disk space. They're used in specialized applications like virtual machines and some download tools will also use them when downloading large files. Normally if you copy a sparse file with Opus it will be "de-sparsified" (not really a word), meaning the copy will occupy its full size on disk. With this option turned on, regions in the source file that are marked as sparse will be recreated in the copied file. This option can be overridden with the COPYSPARSE argument for the Copy command.
   
• Mark copied files as archived (clear the A flag): This clears the A attribute on newly copied files. You can use this if you have a backup solution that looks for the A attribute to know if a file needs backing up, and you want to prevent it from backing up the copied file (unless further changes are made to it).
  
  This can be overridden by the Copy command's MARKDESTARCHIVE argument.
  
  Note that the A attribute in Windows is set on a file when the file has been modified and is ready for archival. Once a file has been archived, the A attribute is usually cleared by software which uses the attribute.
   
• Mark original files as archived after being copied (clear the A flag): This clears the A attribute on the original files after they have been copied, which in turn indicates to some backup software that the original files already have backup copies.
  
  This can be overridden by the Copy command's MARKSOURCEARCHIVE argument.
  
  See Mark copied files as archived, above, for discussion of the A attribute.
   
• Preserve the attributes of copied files: This preserves the attributes of files when they are copied. Without this option attributes will be reset on the new files. This can be overridden by the COPYATTR argument.
   
• Preserve the descriptions of copied files: This preserves any description assigned to the copied files. This option only applies to the DESCRIPT.ION file comment system that Opus uses - descriptions that are stored in file metadata are subject to the Copy metadata option instead. This can be overridden by the COPYDESC argument to the Copy command.
   
• Preserve the timestamps of copied files: This option preserves the timestamps of copied files - if turned off, newly copied files will have their timestamps set to the current time and date. This can be overridden by the COPYFILETIMES, COPYDIRTIMES and COPYCREATIONTIMES argument to the Copy command. The Miscellaneous / Advanced page in Preferences also contains some overrides (no_copy_creation_time and no_copy_dir_dates).
   
• Update permissions/encryption to match the destination when moving files: Normally when you move a file on the same hard drive (an operation that doesn't involve a new file being created), it will keep its original permissions. This can cause problems when you move files into a folder with different permissions - for example, if you moved a private file into a shared public folder, the file would keep its original permissions and not be accessible to users of the share. Turning on this option causes Opus to update the permissions of the moved file to match the folder it has been moved into. This can be overridden by the UPDATESECURITY argument to the Copy command.