Windows File and Folder Tricks

File & Folder

Adding Flexibility on Quick View

Quick View is a Windows application used to read documents with specific extensions, such as *.DOC, *.BMP, *.XLS, *.TXT, *.PPT, etc. You can force Quick View to open all extensions, just follow these steps:

Run Windows Explorer, click the View, Options (or Folder Options) menu in Win98/95. Go to the View tab, and then select the Show all files option. In WinMe click on Tools, Folder Options, go to View tab and then select the Show Hidden Files and Folders.

Right-click the QuikView.exe file in the Windows\System\Viewers folder, and then drag and drop it to the Windows\SendTo folder. Select Create Shortcut(s) Here from the menu.

From now on, you can right-clicking any files in the Windows Explorer or My Computer and use Quick View to read its content. If you can't see the Quick View option in the menu, you can select the Send To - Quick View menu.

Change Folder Icon

Open any folder, and from the View menu select Options in Win98/95. In WinMe click on Tools, Folder Options. Elect the File Types tab and scroll down the list of Registered File Types to the Folder item. Select the Folder item, click Edit in Win98/95 or Advanced in WinMe, and then click the Change Icon button. Select a new icon (.dll, .exe or .ico format). Save your changes. All your folders will display the newly changed icon from now on.

Closing All Folders

Sometimes, when you are navigating through folders, you can make quite a mess of your desktop. For example, you want to look in your Fonts folder. What you must do is double-click My Computer, double-click Control Panel, and then double-click Fonts--leaving three folders to close when you are finished. It would be great if you could just close them all at once. To do so, hold down the Shift key and then click the Close button (the button with the "X" on it, on the right end of the Title bar). Windows closes the current folder and all its parent folders.

Create Subfolders Using File Manager

Have you ever wanted to create a new folder and include a new subfolder all in one step? You can, just not in Windows Explorer. Use File Manager to do the job by clicking the Start button, Run, type "winfile" (without the quotes) and then click OK. Simply highlight the drive you want to create the new folder on, go to the File Menu, select "Create Folder" and the enter the name of the new folder and subfolder, such as FOLDER\SUBFOLDER. Click OK and it's done.

Creating an Icon from a Mouse Pointer

You can use a mouse pointer as an icon. To do so, right-click on a document or a shortcut icon you want to change its icon. From the pop-up menu, choose Properties. Click on the Shortcut tab, and then click on the Change Icon button. Use the Browse button to switch to the C:\Windows\Cursors folder. Choose All Files from the Files of Type box, select one of the pointers, and then click OK.

On the other hand, you can use an icon as a mouse pointer. To do so, open the Control Panel, double-click on the Mouse icon, and then click on the Pointers tab. Double-click on a pointer you want to use. Select All Files from the Files of Type columns, and then select and double-click on an icon. Finally, click on the OK button.

Creating an Unique File Name

To get an attractive document name, use unique characters. For example, ®WORLD WIDE.doc, ß-Ray.xls, Presentation©.ppt, etc. To find these unique characters, click on the Start-Programs-Accessories-System Tool-Character Map menus. From within the Character Map application, select System font. Click on a character you want to use, such as ß or Ó. At the bottom right corner you can see information that shows the combination keys you must type, for example ALT+0223 for ß.

Go back to your application. Click on the File-Save As menus to save the document and then in the File name box press ALT+0223 to get the ß character.

Creating a Documents Folder using Find

If you have many documents with various types of files, you may use this tips to organize your documents. Just perform these steps:

Click the Start-Find-Files or Folders menu to open the Find dialog box. Alternatively, you can click Windows 9X/Me desktop and press the F3 key. In the Named column type *.DOC, meanwhile in the Look in column select My Computer. Also, select the Include subfolders option.

Click the Find Now button. Windows 9X/Me will find all Word documents in your disk and viewing the result. Right-click the desktop, and then select New-Folder. Name the new folder, for example Word Documents. Select all Word documents by pressing the Ctrl+A key, or you can select several files only. Right-click on this group, drag into the new folder, and then select Create Shortcut(s) Here.

Creating a Transparent Icon

Do you want to create your own transparent icon? The secret is selecting a color to paint the top left corner pixel of your icon. Use the same color to paint another part of your icon, which you want to become a transparent.

Creating Your Own Icon

It is easy to create your own icon, just pick a bitmap (.bmp) file and change its extension to .ico. To do so, open the Windows Explorer, click on the View menu (or Tools in WinMe), click Folder Options, click View tab, remove the check on the "Hide file extensions for known files types" option, and then click OK. Select a bitmap file from your drive, press F2 key, and then change its extension to .ico.

Dotted File Names

If you run Notepad or any other application and save your document with Dr.Amanda as the file name, then Notepad will save it as Dr.Amanda.txt file. Meanwhile, if you type "Dr.Amanda", then your document will be saved as Dr.Amanda file (with Amanda as a new extension). You may use this feature to create a special name/extension for your file.

Faster Quick View

Do you want to see your document previews faster? Open Windows Explorer, and then activate the Quick View application to see the first file's content. For the next files you can drag the file icons directly into the Quick View window. For easier operation, both windows (Explorer and Quick View) can be tilled vertically on the screen. If you only want to see bitmap, jpeg or gif files, open the Paint window instead of Quick View. The same method can be applied in Media Player to see multimedia files (wave, midi, avi, etc.) or NotePad for text file (*.txt).

Fast Move to Main Folder

Wherever you are while you open a subfolder, inside the Explorer, My Computer, Open or Save box dialog from an application or Registry Editor, you can close it by pressing Backspace (¬). Press it as many times as levels of subfolder that you want to close.

Find Several Type of Files

If you want to find several files with different types, you only need to use a space to separate its extensions, for examples *.doc *.xls *.txt. The same method can be used to find files in several drives at a time. For example, if you want to find files in drive C:, D:, and E: then type C: D: E: in the Look In box.
Logo Bug for New Shortcut

Right click on Windows 98 desktop, and then click on New, Shortcut. The image displayed on the left side still says "Windows 95" !!

Keep Your Folders Open All The Time

If you find yourself constantly opening the same folder, perhaps it is better to keep it open all the time. You can keep any folder continuously open simply by leaving it open, even during a shut down. The folder will reappear in its last state through all your reboots, as long as you never close it. If you left it minimized, that's where you'll find it next time.

New Folder in The Same Folder Window Frame

You open a folder window. Then you click a folder icon inside it. Then you click another folder icon. You keep doing this until your desktop is covered with folder icons. To get around this situation, hold down the Ctrl key. Double click the folder you want to open. When you do this, Windows displays the contents of the new folder in the same folder window frame. It doesn't matter how many folders within folders you open, just one window appears on-screen.

Protecting a File From Accidental Deletion

There is a simple way to protect a file from accidental deletion and changes by changing the file's attributes. You can flag the file as "READ ONLY," and then no one can accidentally delete or change the contents of that file until the attribute is reset. To do this, right click on the file name in any Windows Explorer window. Select Properties from the drop down menu. On the General tab, check the "Read Only" check box. Click the Apply button, then the OK button. To remove the "Read Only" setting so you can work on the file again, simply uncheck the "Read Only" check box.

Quick New Folder

Want the fastest way to create a new folder? Press the Alt + FNF key (Alt followed by F and then N and then F again) inside My Computer, Network Neighborhood, or Explorer windows. The new folder will appear immediately

Remembering Folder Settings

Windows has a hard time remembering folder settings, such as toolbar, status bar, sort order etc. You can do this, which will retain your settings. To do so, double click My Computer, open your C: drive folder and, without opening any other folders, arrange and configure it exactly as you would like all your folders to look. When you have satisfied, press Ctrl + Alt + Shift simultaneously while you click on the X in the upper right-hand corner to close the window.

Saving the Find Result

After finding all the files that match specific criteria (by clicking the Start-Find/Search-Files or Folder menu), you can save the result by clicking the File-Save Search menu. In the Windows 9X/Me desktop will appear a shortcut to the result. Therefore, on the future when you need to find all those files, you do not have to manually open the Find/Search dialog box again.

Using Archive Properties

Archive properties used to know whether a file need a backup or not. For example, all files that have backed up with Microsoft Backup application will be removed its Archive attributes. One day when you edit those documents, the Archive attribute will be activated again as a sign the documents need the new backups.

You can use this situation to remove the Archive attribute for your large size documents that you don't want to backup. To do so, right-click their names in the Windows Explorer, choose Properties, and then unselect the Archive option. After that, you may run the Microsoft Backup application.

Using The WinDiff Utility

One of the tools that come with the Windows 9X Resource Kit Sampler is Microsoft WinDiff, a file and folder comparison tool. Very handy for version checking and troubleshooting, this tool gives you a graphical display of the differences found between files and/or folders, on a line-by-line, color coded list.

WinDiff isn't installed as part of Windows 9X, but you can easily set it up yourself. Just pop in your Win9X CD and go to the \tools\reskit\file folder. Look for and copy WINDIFF.EXE and GUTILS.DLL (and optionally, the Help file WINDIFF.HLP) to any folder, for example C:\Windows, then create a shortcut to WINDIFF.EXE and drop it into your System Tools folder for easy access later.

Viewing Several Type of Files at the Same Time

In the Open dialog box of any applications, Microsoft Word for example, you can see list of several type of files at the same time. You only need to type all extensions, and use semicolon as the separator. For example, to see the .DOC, .TXT, and .RTF files, just type *.doc; *.txt; *.rtf in the File name column, and then press Enter.

Print in Full Details

Here's how to print several directories with lots of files and also print full details of the file, date size etc. Open MS-DOS Command Prompt dialog box. Change to the C:\ root directory by typing in CD\ and then hit Enter. From the C:\ prompt type in DIR /S > DIRLIST.TXT and then hit Enter. That will give you a text document called DIRLIST.TXT which will contain all directories and all the files under each directory, including file sizes and dates. To print or edit the document, open it with Edit application (simply type EDIT DIRLIST.TXT and press Enter).

Find the Actual Location

Want to find the actual location of a file's shortcut? Right-click on the shortcut, choose Properties, and then click on the Shortcut tab. In Shortcut, click on Find Target and Windows will take you there.

Upper and Lowercase in Your Folder Name

When you type a new name for a folder or a file in the Explorer, by default Windows will capitalizes the first letter and makes all the rest of the letters lowercase. Even if you try to type all of the letters in uppercase, you only get one uppercase letter. However, if you type only lowercase letters, the first letter isn't capitalized. If you type more than eight characters in uppercase or mixed case, they will keep their individual cases.
If you include characters that are not allowed in the DOS format for file or folder names (e.g. a comma), the case of the individual letters is kept. Typing long file or folder names (over eight characters) keeps the name as you typed it.