[RyanG3]

At work I'm required to copy folders containing many files to our Windows server, which then runs a report on the files, unfortunately the app that runs the report gets confused by all the invisible files Mac OS X creates.

Is there a way to eliminate Mac OS X's invisible files before I copy the folder of files to the Windows server?? Example the ._DS_Store, and any other ._files.

I'm not a techie or AppleScript person and according to the IT department here at work, they can't make their reporting app ignore the OS X hidden files and put the burden back on me to find away around it on the Mac side.

Any help would be appreciated.

Thank you.

[SMacTech]

Whoever is writing the reports doesn't know how to code properly, especially with a fixed filename like .DS_Store

You don't have to copy these files, they will get created automatically by the OS X clients browsing the shares from the server. If they are being created locally get a program like TinkerTool, which allows you to easily configure the Finder to show invisible files and manually delete them before you copy them to the server.

Have your IT staff write a script that runs on the server to eliminate them before backups or something clever. I did it, it wasn't very hard.

[theolein]

If the paths to the server are know, then you can create a minimal Applescript which will delete the .DS_Store file when you're done copying. You could possibly even make a folder action which does the job.

Also, since the .DS_Store file is only created when you browse the folder on your Mac, but not when you simply drop files on the folder icon, you can avoid the issue by simply having an alias on your desktop to the network share and simply dropping the files on the folder icon, and NOT waiting for the spring loaded action to open the folder, because that will then create the DS_Store file.

Alternatively, if you're comptent in the terminal, you can do your copying from there and no DS_Store will be added. You could even copy the files that need to go to the server to a folder on your desktop that has a folder action to copy those files to the server.

There are many solutions to your problem, but the real problem is that your sys admins seem incompetent, since a really trivial windows batch file or vbs script can delete all those .DS_Store files in a hierarchy with no problem whatsoever before starting the reporting app.

[RyanG3]

Thanks for your responses!

[Macola]

If you want to clean up all hidden files on the SMB volume (including the resource forks) check on VersionTracker for an app called CleanUp SMB Mess. It does a nice job.

[RyanG3]

Originally posted by Macola:
If you want to clean up all hidden files on the SMB volume (including the resource forks) check on VersionTracker for an app called CleanUp SMB Mess. It does a nice job.

Great! Thanks!