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to the Unleashing Windows Index Last month I talked about some tricks to make Windows more productive. For the most part, however, the tips mainly dealt with Program Manager. This month, I would like to examine some things to make the Windows File Manager more productive. The File Manager program allows most of the functions that can be done on the DOS command line, but with a Windows interface. With a different interface, File Manager works a bit differently from the way the DOS command line works.
The first thing to know about File Manager is how to select files. The first way is to select items in a sequence. To do this with the mouse, left-click on the first file you want to select. Then, hold down the <Shift> key and left-click on the last item in the sequence. All of the files in between will also be selected. If you are using the keyboard, move to the first file you want to select, then hold down on the <Shift> key and use the arrow keys to select the remaining items.
Of course, you don't always want to select items in a particular sequence. File Manager lets you select files in any order as well. To select items out of sequence, hold down on the <Ctrl> key and left-click on each file you want to select. File Manager will then add that item to the block of files. To do this with the keyboard, use the arrow keys to move to the first item on the list, and then press <Shift>+<F8>. Then, move to each file you want to select and press the spacebar. When you are finished, press <Shift>+<F8> again. You can also use <Ctrl>+<Shift> with a left-click to select multiple blocks of items with the mouse.
You can select all the files in a directory by clicking on a file in the file window, then hitting either the slash key (/) or <Ctrl>+</>. Conversely, to deselect all the files in a directory, hit the backslash (\) or <Ctrl><\>.
If you're a veteran of DOS, you may remember using wildcards to select all of the .txt files, for example, in a directory. Windows allows for the same type of selection using the Select Files command. To use the Select Files command, Choose the File menu in File Manager, then choose Select Files. A dialog box will appear. Type either the name of the file or wildcard combination in the Files box. Choose the Select button. Once you start selecting files, the Cancel button changes to the Close button. At this point, you can either add more items to the group by typing new text and choosing Select, or stop adding items by choosing Close.
If you can't find the file you're looking for, let File Manager do the work for you. Choose File from the menu, and select Search. In the Search for box, type either the filename you want to find or a selection using wildcards. In the Start From box, the current directory will be listed. File Manager will search this directory and all its sub-directories for the particular files. If you want to search the entire drive, type the drive letter, a colon, and a backslash. (C:\ for example) Then choose OK. File Manager will look for all the items you selected and will display all the ones it finds in a separate window. From this window, you can perform all the operations to the files as if they were displayed in the file window.
Once files are selected, you'll probably want to know how to do things with the selected items. The most common actions are moving and copying files. File Manager works differently with selected items depending on whether you drag the items to the same drive or a different drive. If you drag selected items to the same drive letter, File Manager automatically moves the items. If you drag the selected items to a different drive, File Manager copies the items to that drive. Of course, you can force File Manager to either move or copy files. To force File Manager to move files, hold down on the <Shift> key and drag the items, to copy items, hold down on the <Ctrl> key and drag.
You can also use the menu to move and copy files. Choose File from the menu, and either choose Move or Copy. One additional feature with the menu is that you can copy a file to the Windows Clipboard. To copy a file to the Clipboard, choose File, Copy and in the Copy dialog, click on the Copy To Clipboard option. Then choose OK. You can now paste this file into another application, if it supports OLE (Object Linking & Embedding.) You can also embed a file into an application that is already open by sizing the File Manager window, and dragging the file into the open document. You can link a file to an open document by holding down on <Shift>+<Ctrl> and dragging it into the document. These only work, however, if the application you are dragging into supports OLE.
Once you become familiar with it, File Manager can be a powerful tool to organize your files. File Manager's flexibility and ease-of-use make it far better than the DOS command line for file management.