what happens when ...
 

just out of curiosity:

what happens in the following situation.

I make a safety clone (share users and apps), so SD copies system files and some apple apps, but symlinks all other 3rd party apps and user accounts (AFAIK).

Now i make a copy script that includes the "safety clone" script, and, in addition, copies some more 3rd party apps, like Microsoft Office.
However, on my external disk, the microsoft office folder is already symlinked to the original one -- what does SD do? Does it
1. just copy the office folder, which could mean that it actually copies the original folder back into itself, because of the symlink pointing back? or, does it
2. first remove that symlink, and then copy?

Best regards,
Gabriel.

followup: strange enough, it seems that SD copies everything in /Applications/Utilities with the "safety clone" script ...

It'll replace the symlink with the folder (but not follow; we don't follow links).

And yes, we do copy all of Utilities: most of it is, indeed, Apple stuff (and it changes a lot version-to-version of the OS). Linking it wouldn't save much space, so we didn't.

Well, i put most of the 3rd party apps into Utilities ...

Regards,
Gabriel.

OK, then, you'll have to create your own Safety Clone script -- based on ours -- to handle your unusual situation. Shouldn't be too hard: ours is a good example of what to do.