Why can't I copy a file to a location using an environment variable?

Question

I have this code that copies outlook PST files, and when used with the full location file path it runs perfectly fine. I've added a method to run %UserProfile% in the first line as this needs to be run in a domain context from GPO and doing it individually is non-feasible. This runs and closes outlook and reopens it at the appropriate time except one thing is amiss.

It is no longer copying the appropriate files. I echoed the initial %userprofile% sections and it is reading the correctly as "drive letter"\users\userprofile. I'm not sure where this is breaking or how to identify it.

'===================BEGIN MODIFY====================================
Set objShell = CreateObject("WScript.Shell")
userProfilePath = objShell.ExpandEnvironmentStrings("%UserProfile%")

'Set the amount of pst-files you want to copy. Start counting at 0!
ReDim pst(1)

'Define the location of each pst-file to backup. Increase the counter!
pst(0) = "%UserProfile%\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Outlook\PST\Outlook Data File - mike.pst"
pst(1) = "%UserProfile%\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Outlook\PST\Archive.pst"

'Define your backup location
BackupPath = "%UserProfile%\Documents\Outlook Backups\"

'Keep old backups? TRUE/FALSE
KeepHistory = FALSE

'Maximum time in milliseconds for Outlook to close on its own
delay = 30000 'It is not recommended to set this below 8000

'Start Outlook again afterwards? TRUE/FALSE
start = TRUE

'===================STOP MODIFY====================================

'Close Outlook
Call CloseOutlook(delay)

'Outlook is closed, so we can start the backup
Call BackupPST(pst, BackupPath, KeepHistory)

'Open Outlook again when desired.
If start = TRUE Then
  Call OpenOutlook()
End If


Sub CloseOutlook(delay)
  strComputer = "."
  Set objWMIService = GetObject("winmgmts:" _
  & "{impersonationLevel=impersonate}!\\" & strComputer & "\root\cimv2")

  'If Outlook is running, let it quit on its own.
  For Each Process in objWMIService.InstancesOf("Win32_Process")
    If StrComp(Process.Name,"OUTLOOK.EXE",vbTextCompare) = 0 Then
      Set objOutlook = CreateObject("Outlook.Application")
      objOutlook.Quit
      WScript.Sleep delay
      Exit For
    End If
  Next

  'Make sure Outlook is closed and otherwise force it.
  Set colProcessList = objWMIService.ExecQuery _
  ("Select * from Win32_Process Where Name = 'Outlook.exe'")
  For Each objProcess in colProcessList
    objProcess.Terminate()
  Next
  Set objWMIService = Nothing
  Set objOutlook = Nothing
  set colProcessList = Nothing
End Sub


Sub BackupPST(pst, BackupPath, KeepHistory)
  Set fso = CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject")

  If KeepHistory = True Then
    ArchiveFolder = Year(Now) & "-" & Month(Now) & "-" & Day(Now)
    BackupPath = BackupPath & ArchiveFolder & "\"
  End If

  For Each pstPath in pst
    If fso.FileExists(pstPath) Then
      fso.CopyFile pstPath, BackupPath, True
    End If
  Next
  Set fso = Nothing
End Sub


Sub OpenOutlook()
  Set objShell = CreateObject("WScript.Shell")
  objShell.Run "Outlook.exe"
End Sub

Answer 1

When you declared userProfilePath = objShell.ExpandEnvironmentStrings("%UserProfile%"), you put the path of %UserProfile% in the variable named userProfilePath, but afterward you don't use this variable. That's a problem, because a few lines down, what you end up doing is declaring pst(#) with %userprofile% as a string, which doesn't work.

In other words, the %UserProfile% environment path/string needs to be expanded before being used as a path.

Your code would work if you used the userProfilePath variable you declared:

'Define the location of each pst-file to backup. Increase the counter!
pst(0) = userProfilePath+"\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Outlook\PST\Outlook Data File - mike.pst"
pst(1) = userProfilePath+"\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Outlook\PST\Archive.pst"

'Define your backup location
BackupPath = userProfilePath"\Documents\Outlook Backups\"

instead of

'Define the location of each pst-file to backup. Increase the counter!
pst(0) = "%UserProfile%\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Outlook\PST\Outlook Data File - mike.pst"
pst(1) = "%UserProfile%\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Outlook\PST\Archive.pst"

'Define your backup location
BackupPath = "%UserProfile%\Documents\Outlook Backups\"