xcopy wildcard source folder name to destination

Question

I want to copy from a wildcard source folder to a destination folder:

xcopy a:\\parentfolder\\n* x:\\parentfolder

Only folders starting wit

Answer 1

If you first CD to the folder you want to copy it will work:

a:
cd \parentfolder
xcopy /s n*.* x:\parentfolder

Answer 2

for /f "delims=" %%a in ('dir /b/ad "a:\parentfolder\n*" ') do xcopy "a:\parentfolder\%%a\*" x:\parentfolder\

As you have it, XCOPY assumes that n* is a filespec, and there's no way to tell it otherwise.