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I have approx. 1200 document files from which I want to create an iso image. The list is in an excel spreadsheet and contains the path to the files on a mapped network drive. The issue is that all these images are in different/individual folders on a mapped network Drive. Adding each file to the iso image would take hours.

I could copy the files to a single folder first. However the file's properties (Creation Date) would be the date the copy was made. its important that the creation date to be the same as the original file on the network drive.

I cant find an ISO creator that allows you load up a list of files from a text file or whatever. is there such a thing? or a way of doing this.

or is there a way of copying the files without changing the creation date? (preferably with VBA)

any help ideas would be much appreciated

Sonny123
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1 Answers1

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You don't mention the OS, so here are two methods, for Windows and Linux, both relying on a simple text file. Note that for Windows, you'll need the free tool 7-Zip, because Windows' built in utility, Robocopy requires the path be separate from filename, which you did not state was the case.

  • In both cases, copy the column from the spreadsheet having the full file path, UNC if needed, into a text editor such as Kate or Notepad++.

  • Add an additional linefeed (\n) at the beginning and end of the text (\r\n for Windows).

  • For Linux, and possibly for Linux Subsystem for Windows (WSL), untested: Using the editor's search, find the end-of-line character (\n) and replace with

    [destination] \n cp -p  (There's a space after -p.).

  • For Windows: Using the editor's search, find the end-of-line characters (\r\n) and replace with

    \r\n "C:\Program Files\7-Zip\7z.exe" a [destination.zip]  (There's a space after the destination zip filename.) The files will be zipped, with the file times preserved. To unzip, preserving that data, use the 7-Zip GUI to extract the files, because there appears to be an issue with the command-line version of the utility preserving date/time. My quick test showed the D/T modified is preserved by the GUI.

  • Eliminate the first and/or last partial lines, save the file and run as a batch script.

  • You'll need another utility to make the saved files into ISO format.

N.B.

  • These answers have been only partially tested, and you'll need to modify them for your spreadsheet, network and OS.
  • Of course, using either method, any files having the same filename will overwrite each other!
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DrMoishe Pippik
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