Copy-Item copies directory as well as contents to UNC path

powershell unc powershell-1.0
RhysC picture RhysC · Dec 15, 2009 · Viewed 80.1k times · Source

I'm trying to take the contents of a folder and copy it to another using PowerShell 1.0. Pretty simple stuff and it all works fine using Copy-Item $from $to -recurse if I am copying from a local folder to a local folder. However, if the $to variable is a UNC path, it seems to copy the $from directory, not just its contents.

e.g. 

$from = "c:\temp\rhysc\" 
$to = "\\OtherMachineName\ShareFolder\"  
Copy-Item $from $to -recurse

...ends up up creating a folder \\OtherMachineName\ShareFolder\rhysc instead of just copying over the contents of the folder.

I want to maintain the structure of the $from directory that I am copying over so my basic attempt at piping didn't work (everything got dumped in the root of the $to folder) 

Get-ChildItem $from -recurse | Copy-Item -destination $to

Answer

David Tchepak picture David Tchepak · Dec 15, 2009

Try:

$from = "c:\temp\rhysc\*"

Related questions

Cannot access network drive in PowerShell running as administrator

I'm running PowerShell in a Windows 7 x64 virtual machine. I have a shared folder on the host mapped as a network drive (Z:). When I run PS normally I can access that drive just fine, but if I run it "…

Read More
Running Get-ChildItem on UNC path works in Powershell but not in Powershell run in batch file

I am writing a batch file that executes a Powershell script that at one point loops items with UNC paths as attributes and uses Get-ChildItem on those paths. In a minimal version, this is what is happening in my scripts: …

Read More
Select-string escape character

I'm trying to search directory c:\bats\ for batch files containing the unc path \\server\public Command: Get-ChildItem -path c:\bats\ -recurse | Select-string -pattern "\\server\public" I receive an error related to the string \\server\public: Select-string : The string \\server\…

Read More