Should Ctrl-C interrupt a COPY?

May 20, 2008
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Syracuse, NY, USA
Ctrl-C doesn't seem to interrupt a COPY. In my test, I copied a 500MB file from one drive to another (simply, "COPY 500meg y:\") ... about an 8-second job. I held Ctrl-C the whole time; it was not interrupted.

Originally (and ill-advisedly) I started a 500MB copy to a share on an internet VPN and found I couldn't stop it.
 

Charles Dye

Super Moderator
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May 20, 2008
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Albuquerque, NM
prospero.unm.edu
In 4DOS it would; but then 4DOS was doing most of the work, read-write, read-write, read-write, until done. In TCC I think it's just a single API call, CopyFileEx() or whatever.
 

rconn

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May 14, 2008
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Ctrl-C doesn't seem to interrupt a COPY. In my test, I copied a 500MB file from one drive to another (simply, "COPY 500meg y:\") ... about an 8-second job. I held Ctrl-C the whole time; it was not interrupted.

That's Windows -- the copy is done inside a (non-interruptable) Windows API.

This is not actually 100% true -- there are some types of COPY (like /A) that copy in blocks, and others (like /G) that do a callback and can be interrupted.
 

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