PC dual save possible?

[BLiZZaRD]

At work I have control of 11 different computers. Most are running Win XP and the others Win 2k. My problem is that we have a certain folder on a shared directory where all files (reports, audits, etc) are to be saved so the Supervisor can go in and verify them before they are sent out.

Problem is, most of the normal users know as much about computers as I do a Russian Space Shuttle. They simply choose the "save as.." option and end up saving to their documents folder, or to their desktop.

I was wondering if there was something I could do that would recognize file types, either generic (i.e. *.doc, *.txt) or even specific (i.e. filename.doc) and when saved, it would save where ever they save it to by default, but would ALSO save to the specified folder in the shared directory.

Please tell me this is possible. I would rather go and add what ever fix I needed to to each computer than try to retrain 11 persons every 2 weeks (that is what it would take)

Thanks in advance!

BLiZZ

[djr33]

Hmm... I'd say it's kinda invading their privacy. Certainly warn them. But... it is work, I guess...

You'd need to reprogram word.

The other option is that they run a script or it runs automatically that searches that directory and saves them to a network drive. Seems simple enough to even make use of a batch file. Might be a bit more complex than that though...

[thetestingsite]

I'm pretty sure you could create a batch file to do this, and add it to the scheduled tasks list to run every x minutes on every machine. The question is, how would you do the batch file. I have been trying to figure something like this out for a while without any luck. I think John knows a bit about it, but no sure how much he knows. Perhaps he could shed some light on the situation.

[djr33]

Batch isn't all that hard.

Start>Run>"cmd">"help">[Enter]

And look at the list of possible commands. copy, among others, can accomplish this with ease, I think.

The problem I see is getting it to a network drive. If it is just a named drive and no connecting needed, then there should be no issue. But if it's a more complex system, that might cause some trouble.


Also, I still have mixed feelings about this. You should be very careful with your invasion of privacy. No matter where I'm working, I'll have some confidential documents, or at least things I wouldn't want spread around. What if an employee backs up a copy of an email that is negative toward a fellow employee? Just seems like a mess.

I think it would be a lot easier to tell people how to save to the network drive, or how to save to a "special" outbox folder in my documents, if you're sure you'd want to do this.

[tech_support]

REM The Share folder
SET SHAREFOLDER=C:\

REM Documents
copy "%userprofile%\Desktop\*.doc" %SHAREFOLDER%
copy "%userprofile%\My Documents\*.doc" %SHAREFOLDER%

REM Word 2007 Documents
copy "%userprofile%\Desktop\*.doc" %SHAREFOLDER%
copy "%userprofile%\My Documents\*.doc" %SHAREFOLDER%

REM *.txt Documents
copy "%userprofile%\Desktop\*.txt" %SHAREFOLDER%
copy "%userprofile%\My Documents\*.txt" %SHAREFOLDER%

For the Batch file.

[BLiZZaRD]

Yes the issue of privacy has come up, however, these are work computers, not personal computers, and they have all been made aware of that.

Looking at the batch file code above, it seems this is a non issue though... The forms that the employees will be using and saving are in one specific folder on the shared drive, which by the way, is from a new partition on one of the computers, given a new drive letter (in this case m:\ ) and is shared over the network.

Sooo.. guessing from the code example above I can choose to only save files from that specific folder in the dual format?

I appreciate all the help with this one guys

Now, if I can be so stupid as to ask... I make the above (with my settings) and save as whatever.bat then I put it on each of the computers and then what? I haven't had to do anything like this before so I am learning as we go here.

[BLiZZaRD]

No other help/ideas how to properly implement this .bat file?

[thetestingsite]

Run a scheduled task to run that file. We use batch files to do or backups for some of our servers, and we set it as a scheduled task. Works good too.

[BLiZZaRD]

Okay, so I would just place the file some where on the computer, then make a task to run it every X days or X hours or something?

Wow, I thought it would be a little harder than that....

Is there a way to do this without the task scheduler, say to run the file every time Word runs a "save as..." option or something?

....how else can I make this more complicated? ROTF

[thetestingsite]

Not sure how you would do something like that without actually "rewriting" Word. Is that complicated enough for you

But on a serious note; I would have to recommend the task scheduler, or you could just tell your co-workers to run that batch file after they save a document.

Hope this helps.