Configuring Windows Explorer
Basic Modifications
The Microsoft Windows Explorer provides file and directory management
functions similar to the old file manager and the DOS dir command.
However, the default configuration provides misleading information
and is particularly hard to use.
This section describes the basic changes needed to make
the Windows Explorer just a bit friendlier.
There are many ways to open Windows Explorer.
- Double click on the My Computer icon
- Right click on the My Computer icon and select either
Open or Explore from the menu
- Left click on the Start button and select
Programs/Windows Explorer
- Right click on the Start button and select either
Open or Explore from the menu
- Hold down the
Windows key
and press 'E'
- A number of dialog boxes provide access to either the Explorer or
Explorer functionality
The main difference in these methods is in how the data is displayed.
When Open is selected, a window full of icons is displayed.
If one of the folder icons is double clicked,
another window full of icons is opened. And so on.
When Explorer is selected, the displayed window has a directory tree
on the left-hand side, and the directory's contents
on the right-hand side.
Like before, the tree is traversed by double clicking on folders.
Only this time, the original window is reused.
Actually, both of these options run the same program (Explorer.exe),
only the command line parameters are different.
From the registry,
| explore | C:\WINDOWS\Explorer.exe /e,/idlist,%I,%L
|
| open | C:\WINDOWS\Explorer.exe /idlist,%I,%L
|
As you can see, the only difference is the /e command line parameter.
In order to change the default action when double clicking
on the My Computer icon, open Windows Explorer.
(Use any method you like.)
From the menu bar, select View/Options....
In the dialog box,
- Select the File Types tab
- Scroll the list of Registered file types down to Folder
(hint: press F and scroll from there),
- Click the Edit... button
- Click explore
- Click the Set Default button
- Click two Ok buttons to close the dialog boxes
This procedure is summarized in the
cookbook as
Using View/Options.../File Types, edit Folder
and change the default action from Open to Explore
The Microsoft braindead default installation on Windows Explorer
hides the file extensions.
Microsoft has apparently decided that extensions are just too
confusing for users to understand.
You haven't lived until you have 5 files named autoexec.
Duh, which one is autoexec.bat?
Gee, its the one with the type MS-DOS Batch File.
Well, it actually gets worse than this.
Try using Notepad to create a file named test.xxx.
The file is actually named test.xxx.txt.
However, if the extensions are hidden
(did I mention that this is the Microsoft braindead default),
it shows in Windows Explorer as test.xxx!
A similar thing happens when you try to save test.xxx
from Microsoft Word.
Depending on the selected file type, the actual file name could be
test.xxx.doc, test.xxx.txt, test.xxx.rtf, or something else,
but only test.xxx is shown for each of these.
To make matters worse, these 8.3 filenames can not be used in some DOS applications
because the filenames (which are actually 8.3.3 which you can't see)
are automatically converted to
testxx~1.doc, testxx~1.txt, testxx~1.rtf, and so forth.
(BTW, these extra unwanted extension can be suppressed if
you enclose the filenames in double quotes when the file is created.)
On the other hand,
if Notepad is used to create a file named test.bat,
then that is the file's name.
This can be improved by simply changing the default.
From the Windows Explorer menu bar, select View/Options....
In the dialog box,
- The View tab should already be selected
- In Win 95, Uncheck Hide MS-DOS file extensions for file types that are registered
- In NT 4.0, Uncheck Hide file extensions for known file types
- Click either the OK or the Apply button
- Close the dialog box
BTW, even after changing this configuration option,
there are at least 4 extensions
(pif, lnk, shr, and url)
which will not be displayed.
(This can be verified from a command prompt using dir.)
Did I mention that Microsoft tools are the best?
There is little as frustrating as having hidden files.
You think that you have selected everything in a folder
and either zip it or copy it to a floppy, only to find that
something is missing.
By default, Windows Explorer hides all files which end in
.dll, .sys, .vdx, .386, and
.drv as well as all files marked as hidden.
This can be improved by simply changing the default.
From the Windows Explorer menu bar, select View/Options....
In the dialog box,
- The View tab should already be selected
- Select Show all files
- Click either the OK or the Apply button
- Close the dialog box
Of course, this does not allow Windows Explorer to show all the
files on the disk.
Those marked system and hidden are still kept from
prying eyes.
See C:\windows\Fonts\marlett.ttf (Win 95) or
C:\WINNT\Fonts\marlett.ttf (NT 4.0) for an example.
By default, Windows Explorer shows only the bottom level
of the directory tree
in the Title Bar (the blue bar at the top of the window)
and in the Description Bar over the filenames (assuming that it is enabled).
This can be a problem if, for instance, you have temp
directories on each of several hard drives.
Once you scroll the left directory tree pane
so that the currently open directory is no longer visible,
there is no indication as to what drive
the files in the right pane are on.
On the other hand, if you are several levels deep into the tree structure,
it can be rather difficult to determine what the directory name actually is.
This can be improved by simply changing the default.
From the Windows Explorer menu bar, select View/Options....
In the dialog box,
- The View tab should already be selected
- Select Display the full path in the title bar
- Select Include description bar for right and left panes
- Click either the OK or the Apply button
- Close the dialog box
In standard brain dead fashion, the Microsoft default when
exploring files is to use the list view.
This view shows only the file names, but not their size or
date last modified.
It also requires several clicks in the menu to change the
file's sort order.
This can be improved by simply changing a default.
From the Windows Explorer menu bar, select View
and check Toolbar.
This toolbar simplifies changing disk drives
and provides many of the menu selections as buttons.
Click the Details button to display
Name, Size, Type, and Modified.
Clicking on the buttons with these names will sort
the files in either assending or decending order.
(Just keep clicking to change the order.)
However, notice that Microsoft has improved the user
interface extensively by not providing any way to sort
the files be file extension (which by default are hidden - remember?).
There are many times that you will want to simply see what is in a file
without Opening it in its default application.
Or perhaps, the file is not associated with a default application
and you would like to see what is inside.
Normally, I prefer to view these files as either generic text or
as a hex dump.
Unfortunately, a browser of with both of these capabilities
is not provided with windows.
Instead, we will use Notepad,
the generic text browser which comes standard with all versions of Windows.
When you right click on any file, one of the available options
is Send To.
When selected, this option displays the contents of the
SendTo folder.
Any application (or short cut) placed in this folder will be available
every time the context menu is displayed.
The exact location of this folder depends on the specific operating system
and on the current configuration.
To use this feature, the procedure is to
- Right click the selected file (this opens the context sensitive menu)
- Select Send To
- Click on Edit in Notepad
To add Edit in Notepad to the SendTo folder
| Win 95 | Create a link to c:\windows\notepad.exe in c:\windows\sendto
|
| Win NT | Create a link to c:\winnt\notepad.exe in c:\winnt\profiles\[userid]\sendto
|
To create the link, in the Explorer,
- Locate and open the appropriate SendTo folder
| Win 95 | c:\windows\sendto
|
| Win NT | c:\winnt\profiles\[userid]\sendto
|
- Locate notepad.exe in the appropriate folder
| Win 95 | c:\windows\notepad.exe
|
| Win NT | c:\winnt\notepad.exe
|
- Scroll the directory tree to display the SendTo folder
while notepad.exe is still displayed
- With the right mouse button, drag notepad.exe to the SendTo folder
- When asked, select Create Shortcut(s) Here
- Rename the shortcut to Edit in Notepad
And that is all there is to it.
If you want to browse a file in hex,
simply create a shortcut to the DOS debug command
(c:\windows\command\debug.exe in Win 95)
in the SendTo folder.
Be sure to rename it to something like Browse in Debug.exe
You will need a couple of useful commands to make this work
- d - Dump the next 8x16=256 bytes in both hex and ASCII
|
d 100 | Dump starting from 100 -
normally, 100 is the start of the file
|
| d 100 1ff | Dump from 100 to 1ff - 256 bytes
|
- q - Quit
- ? - Help