Windows 7 - Source path too long

I was trying to copy my user folder to a USB drive for backup but copy failed with 25 files remaining to be copied with alert "Source path too long". The problematic path was not given in the alert and there was no option to continue to copy the files that could be copied and no indication of what the remaining (as yet uncopied) files were. The only option was to cancel the copy. This is another instance of bad design in Windows7.

After a bit of searching I found FastCopy, described by Darwin Sanoy.

I downloaded this and ran it (no install necessary) and it does a much better job.

It fails to copy some files. When it fails it logs the reason for failure (e.g. cannot access file because it is being used by another process, access is denied, etc.) and the full path of the file it failed to copy, then continues copying what it can. This is excellent!! When it is done, I can review the failed files and decide what to do about them and it copies all that it can!

Not only does FastCopy fail more elegantly - it copies far more files. Windows copy function indicated that there were only 25 files remaining to be copied when it failed. FastCopy copies far more than 25 more files than Windows copy. Windows copy indicated about 17GB to copy. FastCopy copied  vastly more data than this. Windows copy function must silently exclude a lot of files.

So much better than Microsoft's copy function.