File management
Recovering deleted files
Periodically, I mention programs for recovering files that have been deleted and aren’t in the Recycle Bin. PC World has an article, How to Recover Almost Anything, that discusses methods for getting back lost, damaged or deleted files. One software program for undeleting that is mentioned is FreeUndelete.
Adding functions to the “Send to” menu in Vista
The very useful “Send to” feature in the right-click context menu goes back a long way. I have written about it at my beginner’s site and posted here about how to add things to the list of folders and programs accessible from it. “Send to” lives on in Vista but the method for adding to [...]
Command line tip #3 - Targeted deleting
The Windows XP (and Vista) command shell has a delete command “del” that provides flexibility and power for the chore of deleting files. If there are any voices in the background saying, “What else is new, it’s just DOS”, they couldn’t be more wrong. This 32-bit command shell is much more powerful. The 16-bit DOS [...]
Disable those pesky Thumbs.db files
If you have a folder with any pictures in it, or if you choose the “thumbnails” view for a folder, a system file called “Thumbs.db” will be generated. The purpose of the file is to act as a kind of database (hence, the extension “db”) that makes generating thumbnail views faster. If you have the [...]
New Microsoft Office file formats redux
A while back I made a post about the new file formats in Microsoft Office 2007. I keep encountering people who are confused by the new formats so I am going to repeat what I said previously:
There are many changes in the latest release of Microsoft Office. The interface is quite different and there are [...]
How to name a Windows file
You may think that the process of naming a file is pretty straightforward and needs no explanation. While that is correct to a considerable degree, there are some restrictions and limits that you may not be aware of. I set out to write a quick post on the rules for naming a file and I [...]
More on downloading with BitTorrent
A previous post referenced a tutorial on using BitTorrent. Now a second part with more advanced points is available.
A guide to the file sharing method BitTorrent
File sharing is a way to speed up the downloading of very large files. Unfortunately, file sharing methods have been used to distribute copies of music and video files illegally but they are also a perfectly legitimate way to expedite the downloading of free but oversized files like Linux distros or videos. BitTorrent is a [...]
How to automatically run a program at shutdown or logoff
Sometimes it is desirable to run a program or script automatically when the computer is shut down or when a user logs off. You may want to do some cleaning up or perhaps back up some regularly used files. Although automatically running a program at startup is easy, it is more complicated to run something [...]
GREP search tool for Windows
Today’s huge hard drives with hundreds of gigabytes of capacity, combined with all the ways that we now accumulate files, means that a system may have hundreds of thousands of files. Finding things is not always easy, even with one of the desktop search programs. Many times it’s not the file name that needs searching [...]