Phil & sh0rt, both welcome to the board.

Phil
Using policies can block users from editing the registry, but with only two
lines we can remove those blockade and we can start REGEDIT.
You advice you also to remove the REGEDIT and REGEDT32 files from your
clients. As administrator you can start it from your server or from a
floppy for local usage.

The internal commands XCOPY and XCOPY32 are very good for copying files
based on differences. The type of parameters can be different for your
windows version.
An example of possible parameters are:

quote:

---

Copies files and directory trees.
XCOPY source [destination] [/A | /M] [/D[:date]] [/P] [/S [/E]] [/W]
                           [/C] [/I] [/Q] [/F] [/L] [/H] [/R] [/T] [/U]
                           [/K] [/N]
 source       Specifies the file(s) to copy.
 destination  Specifies the location and/or name of new files.
 /A           Copies files with the archive attribute set,
              doesn't change the attribute.
 /M           Copies files with the archive attribute set,
              turns off the archive attribute.
 /D:date      Copies files changed on or after the specified date.
              If no date is given, copies only those files whose
              source time is newer than the destination time.
 /P           Prompts you before creating each destination file.
 /S           Copies directories and subdirectories except empty ones.
 /E           Copies directories and subdirectories, including empty ones.
              Same as /S /E. May be used to modify /T.
 /W           Prompts you to press a key before copying.
 /C           Continues copying even if errors occur.
 /I           If destination does not exist and copying more than one file,
              assumes that destination must be a directory.
 /Q           Does not display file names while copying.
 /F           Displays full source and destination file names while copying.
 /L           Displays files that would be copied.
 /H           Copies hidden and system files also.
 /R           Overwrites read-only files.
 /T           Creates directory structure, but does not copy files. Does not
              include empty directories or subdirectories. /T /E includes
              empty directories and subdirectories.
 /U           Updates the files that already exist in destination.
 /K           Copies attributes. Normal Xcopy will reset read-only attributes.
 /Y           Overwrites existing files without prompting.
 /-Y          Prompts you before overwriting existing files.
 /N           Copy using the generated short names.

---

A possible call can be:
XCOPY \\server\sharename\*.exe c:\directory.path\. /C /H /Q /R /Y

Phil & sh0t we are using our script dircompare.kix which you can
find on our site http://home.wanadoo.nl/scripting which will synchronize
destination directory with source directory. So it will not only add and update files
but also it remove them.

(symbol on our homepage has been linked to related http://kixtart.org topic)

greetings.

[ 25 January 2002: Message edited by: MCA ]