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There are instances when we would need to copy files that are open and even those files are are locked by the Windows operating system. If you are using the standard Windows file manager then it is not possible to do as Windows won’t allow you to do that.

This is where the freeware utility Shadow Copy comes into play. Shadow Copy allows you to copy all files including those files that are locked and open to the folder or directory of your choice. This is possible as Shadow Copy uses Microsoft Volume Shadow services.

To copy the files using Shadow Copy just open the utility, select the Copy from and Copy to locations and set the filter for the file extensions that you intend to copy. Options are available to copy the sub directories, parse junctions, ignoring any errors, overwriting the existing files and overwriting the read only files. That is all Shadow copy does the rest for you.

Download Shadow Copy

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