'hobocopy' is not recognized as an internal or external command

[2hellw...@gmail.com]

Firstly, apologies if this is a duplicate issue.  I searched the group and the GitHub as best I could, but I couldn't find ANYONE who seemed to be having this problem.

I downloaded hobocopy-1.0.0.0-W2K3-Vista-x64-release.zip, extracted the files, and ran the application inside called "Hobocopy."  Whenever I do this, a command window will appear for an instant, then it disappears, and when I enter hobocopy into my own command prompt, all I get is "'hobocopy' is not recognized as an internal or external command."  Am I missing something?  There's no readme anywhere that I can find with instructions, no instructions anywhere online I can find, and whenever I google the error message, I just get a bunch of blogposts and website articles talking about how useful hobocopy is.... I can't seriously be the only person on the internet having this problem, can I?

Clearly I must be missing some step that's implied to everyone else but isn't coming intuitively to me.  I'm running Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit--yes, I know the download says Vista, but in the description it said that version is for users of Windows 2003, 2008, Vista, or 7--and yes, before you ask, I also downloaded and installed vcredist-2008_x64.

If someone can just fill in the blanks, I very much appreciate it.

[Craig Andera]

Hi. I'm the author of hobocopy. Sorry you're having trouble. I'm sure
you're right about the problem being undocumented. A few things.

First, hobocopy is no longer actively supported. It may still work,
but if you're looking for backup software it might make sense to look
elsewhere. I don't actually use Windows any more.

Second, hobocopy is a command line application. If you're not familiar
with these, then you might find that hobocopy is more painful for you
to use than you would like. I hope that doesn't come across as
condescending - it's not meant that way.

Assuming you do want to run hobocopy, you will need to start a command
prompt (as you have done) and make sure that either hobocopy is in
your path, or that you specify the full path to it when running it.
E.g. C:\Users\me\Downloads\hobocopy.exe etc. etc. Otherwise Windows
doesn't know where to find the program you're trying to run.

Finally, I'll mention that hobocopy has been superseded by
shadowspawn. But since that's also no longer supported, there's not a
huge reason to prefer one to the other if you have straightforward
needs. Shadowspawn enables some advanced usages that I'm guessing you
don't care about. It is also a command line application and is run in
the same way.

Hope that helps. Good luck!

> --
> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups
> "hobocopy" group.
> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an
> email to hobocopy+u...@googlegroups.com.
> For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.

[2hellw...@gmail.com]

Wow, thanks for the fast reply.  I followed your instructions, and the program appears to be working like a charm, so thank you for that clarification.  I've only recently started trying to learn how to utilize MS-DOS, and I'm still pretty much a noob at DOS, otherwise I probably would've remembered that I have had to run a command prompt application once or twice before, and thought to try that.  I mistook the application for an installer, and tried to use it as such.  At any rate, I'll probably keep using hobocopy for the time being.  Everyone I've read on the internet seems quite fond of it.