by: John Woram
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A Tree Grows in Explorer Land
STILL NOT SATISFIED with Explorer? Here are a few more ways to coax it into doing what you want.
In last month's explanation of the Explorer /n command, I noted the /n switch opens a new window each time you execute the command via the Start menu's Run option. (If you don't see the subsequent windows opening, drag the top window around. The others are hiding underneath it.) You may or may not see a similar effect if you open an Explorer window by double-clicking on the My Computer icon and opening additional folders within--it depends on how you've configured the Folder tab. Open Explorer's View menu and select Options to view the tab, which appears ahead of View and File Types. When you execute Explorer via the Run command without the /n switch, you'll see only the View and File Types tabs.
The Folder tab offers multiple- and single-window browse options. The former opens a new window each time you open a new folder; the latter shows a single window whose panes change as you open each new folder.
I'll use the multiple-window option to present an overview of some Explorer features, and show how they compare with the old File Manager and the still-older DOS directory tree. For comparison, I'll use the Start menu's Run option. If you want to follow along, open the following Explorer view window:
explorer /e, /root,
With no object following the /root switch (but don't overlook that comma), the All Folders pane shows the Desktop as its root. Click on the plus sign next to My Computer to see the beginnings of a "directory tree" that shows all your disk drives. Click on the plus sign next to any drive letter and the tree expands by one level. Then click on the plus sign next to any folder on the selected drive, and the tree expands by one more level, and so on. As you open more folders, the highest level of the tree disappears off the top of the pane, so that you can see each new folder as it's opened.
The All Folders pane in the 29.6KB bitmap image A Tree Grows in Explorer Land shows a seven-level tree, with some folders removed so you can see the entire tree. The Contents pane shows the seventh level--the half-dozen shortcut icons in the highlighted open folder you see in the All Folders pane. The title bar at the top of the window shows the equivalent DOS prompt that would take you to the same level of the tree.
If you remove the /e switch, Explorer opens in single-pane Open view mode. Now open Explorer with /n, /root, and select the Separate Window radio button from the folder tab in the View/Options menu. From there, double-click on the My Computer icon. From this window double-click on the drive C: icon, and from within that window double-click on the Windows folder. From there double-click on Start Menu, then Programs, then any folder. Resize/reposition each window so that when you're done, you can see all seven windows.
Now, with all these Explorer windows open, let's navigate from one to another. Assuming you can see parts of all seven windows, the fastest way to get to the desired one is to move your mouse pointer into that window and click once. Or, to go window browsing, use the Backspace and Enter keys to work your way in either direction through all the open windows. Note, however, that the Backspace key won't take you all the way to the top. If you press this key while the My Computer window is highlighted, a message warns you: You Are at the Top Level and Cannot Go Up Another Level. To See the Desktop, Minimize Any Open Windows.
Well, if you're at the top level, what's that Desktop window doing one level above the top? No explanation comes to mind, but if you want that Desktop window, move the mouse pointer into it, click once and you're there. You won't see this highest-level Desktop window at all if you start the sequence by double-clicking on the My Computer icon. In this case, My Computer is the highest-level Explorer window on the desktop, so the message makes more sense. In either case, if you want to get back to a clean desktop screen, minimize or close all open windows.
To minimize all windows, right-click on an empty area on the taskbar and select the Minimize All Windows option on the pop-up menu. You'll probably wind up with a taskbar filled with uninformative C: \WIN ... buttons. If so, expand the taskbar so the buttons take up two or more rows, with a bit more information in each one. Or, move it to either side of the screen and expand it horizontally so you can see the entire button text. Both alternatives are space-wasters, though, so you may prefer to leave the taskbar at its default size. Then, just move the mouse pointer over the taskbar's button and the full text pops up immediately above it.
To restore all open windows, again right-click on any empty area of the taskbar, and this time you'll find an Undo Minimize All option on the menu.
You can, of course, close selected windows by clicking on the close button in the upper right corner of the appropriate window(s). Or, you can close any window and all higher-level windows by holding down the Shift key when you click.
This Explorer window should look familiar. It's what you see when you double-click on the desktop's My Computer icon, except in this example the drive C: icon is highlighted. If you've already opened My Computer, execute this command to open a second copy of that window. If you execute this command first, opening My Computer doesn't open a new window. This is because the /n switch used here applies to this command line only. To verify this, try opening My Computer more than once. You'll find that only one window with that name appears, but a new window opens each time you use the Run option to execute the Explorer command. Again, each new window opens on top of the previous one. If you drag one to the side, though, you'll see the previous window hiding beneath it.
Once you're reasonably familiar with all these Explorer switches, you can drag a few Explorer icons onto the desktop and customize each one to suit your needs. For example, if you regularly work within the Windows folder, and especially in the Start menu area, Alt+click on any Explorer shortcut icon, select Properties and click on the Shortcut tab. Now type the following string on the Target line:
Explorer /e, /root,C: \Windows,Start Menu\Programs
For further customization, click on the Change Icon button and select the open-folder icon, or whatever icon suits you. Then click on the OK button, on the Apply button and again on the OK button to close the dialog box. As a final touch, rename the shortcut as Windows Folder.
The next time you double-click on this customized shortcut icon, the Explorer Folders pane will show an open Programs folder. If you scroll to the top of the pane you'll see that its root object is the Windows folder. In this case, the All Folders legend at the top of the Folders pane is misleading, because all folders are not available in the pane. You can access only the C: \Windows folder and its subfolders. If you try to backspace your way to a higher level, nothing will happen.
In doing these experiments, you need only type the word Explorer followed by whatever switches you want. When you press the Apply button, Windows 95 rewrites the line as C: \WINDOWS\EXPLORER.EXE but leaves your switches intact. Note that the first switch is separated from EXPLORER.EXE by only a space, and that a comma follows each switch. In some cases, you can omit the comma after the final switch. If you encounter a meaningless error message while experimenting, it's probably the result of a punctuation error. Also remember that an object and subobject are separated by a comma, not a backslash.
Once you get the hang of it, you'll find it's reasonably easy to create one or more Explorer windows that open to show just what you want to see. After you find the right switch combination, just create a shortcut and enter the desired command string in its Target line area.
If you miss the good old days when File Manager could show multiple directories within its window, open multiple Explorer windows and tile them horizontally or vertically. You'll find these tiling options on the taskbar's Shortcut menu. This isn't as handy as the old File Manager technique, but it's not necessary once you get used to the Explorer way of doing things.
Remember too, that File Manager is not dead; it's just sleeping. To wake it up, just execute winfile via the Start menu's Run option. And you may want to do just that from time to time, because the older applet has a few nice features that didn't make it into Explorer. For example, File Manager gives every file's actual size, while Explorer reports file size by rounding up to the nearest 1KB boundary. Thus, Explorer reports files from 1 to 1,024 bytes as 1KB and a 1,025-byte file as 2KB. Also, Explorer doesn't reveal file attributes. If you highlight a single file, Explorer reports its actual size on the status bar. But if you want to see file attributes, you need to highlight the file and right-click to display its Properties dialog box. It's all very elegant, but in this case I think the older style was more user-friendly.
Spend a little time flipping Explorer's switches, and you may find less and less need to sneak back to File Manager.
Senior Contributing Editor John Woram is the author of Windows Configuration Handbook (Random House, 1993). Contact John in the "Optimizing Windows" topic of WINDOWS Magazine's areas on America Online and CompuServe. To find his E-Mail ID Click Here
by: Jim Boyce
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Click, Sort, Click, Sort
AH, THE GOOD OL' DAYS! Pardon me as I reminisce about the days of yore when DOS was king and the usurper, Windows 1.x, was little more than a fumbling court jester. Long dead are the days when noble, nerdly knights stout of heart and long in the tooth did battle against the demons of Lost Data and File Corruption. Oh, to return to those days of magic and wonder when only the most cryptic of commands would unlock the mysteries of your computer's hard drive and let you sift through the file treasures buried within.
Okay, maybe those good ol' days are best left in the Dark Ages from whence they came. Once I cast off that shroud of fond remembrance, I recall that using DIR, COPY and SORT to manage a load of files was as much fun as riding a tired nag into battle with a broadax and pike, sans the titanium long johns.
In today's battle of the files, Explorer and File Manager are the only weapons you need. Each makes quick work of copying, moving and deleting groups of files. For the uninitiated, they transform file management from an incomprehensible task into a point-and-click breeze. This month, I'll explain a few ways you can make File Manager and Explorer easier to use.
Q: I was able to customize the toolbar in Windows for Workgroups' File Manager, with buttons for displaying files in Size, Date, Type and Name order. I miss that feature in Windows 95's Explorer. Although I can do the same thing from Explorer's View menu, it seems like so many unnecessary steps. Is there another way to do this?
A: It's certainly helpful to be able to sort files based on those properties. If you need to free up some space on your hard drive, for instance, it makes sense to sort files by size. With the biggest files on top, you can find and delete the fattest ones first. Unfortunately, Explorer doesn't include buttons for each option in its toolbar. But there is a quick way to sort.
First, set Explorer to display a detailed list by choosing View/Details. The Contents pane changes to show a column for each of the four fields. To sort by a particular characteristic, click on that field's header. To switch between ascending and descending order, just click on the header again. If you're still longing for File Manager, click on the Start button, choose Run, enter winfile in the Run dialog box and click on OK.
Q: I'm not sure I understand how Explorer and File Manager decide whether to copy a file or move it. If I drag a file from the C: drive to the D: drive, for instance, I've copied the file. How can I control how the file is handled?
A: In File Manager and Explorer, you can copy and drag files within the same drive or from one drive to another. In File Manager, you can drag a file onto a directory in the tree (from the right pane to the left pane) or onto a drive icon in the toolbar. In Explorer, you can drag files from the contents pane to the same drive or a different drive in the tree. Both programs use the same criteria to determine whether to copy or move the file. If you drag the file from one place to another within the same drive, Windows moves the file. Drag the file to a different drive, and Windows copies the file.
It's easy to control the files you drag in both File Manager and Explorer. Hold down Shift while you drag files if you want to move them. Hold down Ctrl as you drag files if you want to copy them. The same principles apply when you're working with single-pane windows (folder windows) in
Windows 95. For example, if you hold down Shift and left-drag an object from a folder to the Desktop, you move rather than copy the item to the Desktop.
Q: How can I select more than one file at a time? Each time I click on a different file, the one I previously selected becomes deselected.
A: This is one of those basic Windows techniques Microsoft tends to assume you know, but which isn't obvious. To select a single object (such as a file), just click on it. To select multiple objects, hold down Ctrl and click on the objects one at a time. To deselect an object, hold down Ctrl and click on the object again. To select a range of objects, select the first one in the range, hold down Shift, and select the last one. All the objects in between the selections will then be highlighted.
Now the tricky part: What if you have multiple items selected and also want to choose a range? Just hold down Ctrl and click on the first object in the range. Then, while still holding down Ctrl, hold down Shift and click on the last object in the range. The original set of objects will remain selected, and the new range will also be selected.
After you've highlighted the items you want to work with, release Ctrl and Shift, click on any one of the selected objects and drag it to its destination. The other selected objects will follow.
Q: I've noticed that in Explorer and in file dialog boxes (like the Open dialog box), filenames are sometimes spaced widely apart. The spacing seems to change from one folder to another. Why is that?
A: When you use the Small Icons or List view in a folder or in Explorer, the spacing between one column of filenames and the next is defined by the longest file or subfolder name in the folder. Windows 95 allocates enough space in each column to hold the longest name in the folder. So, if the filenames are short, the columns are close together. But name a file with a long filename, and the columns get further apart. Unfortunately, there really isn't anything you can do to bring the columns closer together other than shorten the longest filenames.
Q: When I open File Manager, most of the directories appear empty. I know the files are there, because my programs are still working. What's wrong?
A: File Manager probably is trying to display files only with a particular file name or extension. Choose View/By File Type to open the By File Type dialog box. Type *.* in the Name text box, then place a check in each of the check boxes in the File Type group. Choose OK or press Enter, and the files should reappear.
Contributing Editor Jim Boyce is the author of Inside Windows 95 (New Riders Publishing, 1995). Contact Jim in the "Getting Started" topic of WINDOWS Magazine's areas on America Online and CompuServe. To find his E-Mail ID Click Here
by: Karen Kenworthy
Most Moms Today won't let their kids watch TV until they back up their computer data. As grown-ups, we have to be careful not to ignore this lesson ourselves.
Hardware failures are rare, but when hardware goes, it often takes computer data with it. Everyone knows software is fallible, too. I'm sure at some point you've watched helplessly as an errant program consumed several days' hard work. And don't forget fire, theft and computer viruses. You may even have heard the rumor about the hapless user who made a mistake and destroyed data all by himself. It's probably an urban legend, but it's scary just the same.
Fortunately, storing a recent copy of your computer data safely away from your computer enables you to recover from all these disasters with minimal inconvenience and only a slight elevation in blood pressure. Backing up also has other benefits. When you copy your data at specific times and save it permanently, you have an accounting audit trail. Also, copying backups to tape (or another high-capacity medium) provides a fast, convenient way to move large amounts of data between computers. A single 6 gigabyte tape sent via overnight mail transfers data as quickly as a 1 million-baud data link, and is probably more reliable.
As a mom, you may have taught your kids to make backups, but when it comes to picking a backup medium, you're on your own. To decide which is best for you, remember your four Cs: compatibility, cost, convenience and capacity. For most of us, there's no single right medium, because our backup decisions usually involve a set of subjective trade-offs that vary from one situation to another.
Diskettes are no longer the medium of choice. Compared to other media, they're slow and expensive. Their only remaining advantage is the near-universal availability of drives that can read and write them.
Companies like Iomega and SyQuest Technology offer several types of high-capacity, removable disks that are cheaper and faster than diskettes, but slower and more expensive than tape. Magneto-optical disks are now entering their second generation. The first round of products were mostly 128MB or less, but now 256MB and larger disks and drives are appearing.
Removable disks have one big advantage: Most programs can read data directly from a removable disk.
Once far too expensive, hard disks are now surprisingly affordable. Plummeting prices have made backup hard disks reasonable choices. Backing up to a second hard disk has drawbacks, though. First, most hard disks aren't removable. This makes it tough to protect backup hard disks from fire, theft and other hazards that threaten the original data. In addition, hard disk controller failures and other hardware problems may also corrupt backup, as well as original, data.
Tape is currently the most convenient and affordable backup medium. QIC (Quarter Inch Cartridge) drives and tapes are inexpensive and store fairly large amounts of data. QIC tape drives typically attach to your computer's diskette controller or to a parallel port.
If you have lots of data, DAT (digital audio tape) may be your best choice. These drives are fast, and the tapes hold a lot of data (4GB or more) at a modest cost (1 to 2 cents per megabyte). Almost all DAT drives are SCSI devices, so if you don't already own a SCSI adapter, it'll add $100 to $200 to the cost of the drive.
Finally, we come to CD-R (Compact Disc-Recordable) discs. Although you can't write to a standard CD-ROM disc, you can write to a CD-R disc--once. (Some CD-R devices permit multiple recording sessions until the disc is full.) After that, you can read from it using any standard CD-ROM drive. This option is expensive, though. Several vendors are reportedly working on drives that will sell for about half the price of current models, but that still won't close the cost gap between CD-R and tape.
By the way, don't forget that convenience and capacity work hand in hand. A backup medium with a capacity at least as large as your biggest hard disk partition makes backing up your data more convenient. It also makes possible entirely unattended, timed backups.
If you're using Windows or Windows for Workgroups 3.x, you have lots of software choices. MS-DOS versions through 6.22 include a simple program that allows you to store data on diskettes or other devices that behave like hard disks (such as removable disks). The most recent versions of this software include advanced features such as cataloging and compression, and even run under Windows.
You have lots of third-party choices, too. Almost all tape drives come bundled with custom backup software designed to work with a particular drive.
If those programs don't suit you, Symantec offers Norton Backup 3.0. This supports a variety of QIC and DAT drives, as well as diskettes and other drive-like media. Even some SCSI adapter board driver software kits, such as Adaptec's EZ-SCSI and Corel Systems Corel SCSI, include useful Windows-based backup software.
But if you've already made the jump to Windows 95, your backup software choices are more limited. If you're backing up to diskette or another disk-like device, the backup software shipping with Windows 95 may do the job. That software also supports several popular QIC tape drives connected via a diskette drive controller. But Windows 95's built-in software doesn't support SCSI or IDE tape drives. If you're using either of those devices, you have only two choices as of this writing.
Hewlett-Packard recently released Colorado Backup for Windows 95, which supports all current Hewlett-Packard and Colorado Memory Systems tape drives. If you're currently using Colorado Backup software, you're eligible for a free upgrade to the Windows 95 version through April 1st. You can download it from HP's BBS (970-635-0650) or its ftp site (col.hp.com/dist/hp-colorado; on the BBS and ftp site, download file CBW95.exe). The company will also ship you the upgrade for $7.95 (800-469-5150).
The third-party tape backup software on the market is Arcada's Backup for Windows 95. This program marks the company's first appearance in the small-network and standalone PC markets. In addition to supporting almost all SCSI tape drives, Arcada's Windows 95 software supports most QIC drives (connected via a diskette controller or parallel port) and IDE tape drives.
You may be wondering why Win95 users need their own backup software. Why not continue using your trusty DOS and Windows 3.x software?
Most older software appears to work under Windows 95. The program will run, write data to tape or disk, even compare the data on tape to the original data on disk, and report success. But when the time comes to restore that data to your hard disk, you'll discover that two pieces of vital information are missing or corrupt.
First, older software can't see or store Win95's long filenames. So, when you restore a file, you lose the original long filename. Even if you personally don't use the long filename feature, Windows 95 itself does. Many important system files and directories bear long names that older software can't preserve.
The Windows 95 Registry poses another problem for Windows 3.x-based backup software. While Windows 95 is running, this file is a bit exotic. As you probably know, Windows 95, and applications developed for it, treat the Registry as a central information depository. What you may not have heard is that some of that information is kept in RAM, while other information is generated on the fly in response to requests.
Programs that aren't aware of the Registry's special nature will copy the portion of the Registry currently on disk. This will appear to work, but will result in a file that corrupts the real Registry when you restore it. By using special Windows 95 API calls to read and write the Registry, backup software designed for Windows 95 is able to avoid this mistake.
Old backup utilities aren't the only programs that can't see or preserve Windows 95's new long filenames. Pre-Windows 95 defragging, directory sorting and other low-level disk utilities have this blind spot, too. Fortunately, the utilities that ship with Windows 95 make most of this older software unnecessary.
However, in a few cases, the new utilities may not do the job. The current Windows 95 backup utilities may not support your backup device. Or you may be using a mass storage device that's incompatible with Windows 95's standard disk utilities.
If you find yourself in one of these rare situations, take a look at Windows 95's LFNBK.EXE. This utility allows you to use your old software and still preserve long filename information. You can find this file in \DIST\WM\WMFILES\9601JAN\POWER on this CD-ROM.
Contributing Editor Karen Kenworthy is the author of Visual Basic for Applications, Revealed! (Prima Publishing, 1994) and the manager of WINDOWS Magazine forums on America Online and CompuServe. Contact Karen in the "Power Windows" topic of these areas. To find her E-Mail ID Click Here
If you must use an old disk utility that doesn't see or preserve Windows 95's long filenames, don't despair. LFNBK.EXE allows those programs to run safely.
It works its magic by stripping all long filename information from your disk. It also converts a filename's lowercase letters into uppercase. Once that's done, the disk will look exactly as all disks looked before Windows 95--every filename will conform to the familiar DOS 8.3 filename convention. It's now safe to run your old software because there's no long filename information for it to lose.
When the old utility is finished, you'll need to restore the original filename information. Fortunately, LFNBK.EXE tucked away the needed information in a file (LFNBK.DAT) in the disk's root directory before stripping it. On request, LFNBK.EXE will put those original filenames back where it found them, making the disk ready for Windows 95 again.
To save long filename information in order to make it safe for a
pre-Windows 95 disk utility, follow these steps:
To restore long filename information, once your pre-Windows 95 disk utility has finished, follow these steps:
For more information about LFNBK.EXE, read the accompanying LFNBK.TXT file. You'll find both files on the Windows 95 CD in the \ADMIN\APPTOOLS\LFNBACK directory. To install it, copy the LFNBK.EXE to your \WINDOWS\COMMAND directory.
If you have the diskette version of Windows 95, you'll need to download a copy of the program. You'll find it in the WinMag forums on America Online and CompuServe, and on the Web at http: //download.windows.microsoft.com/windows/download/lfnb.exe.
Tunneling, a remarkable quantum mechanics phenomenon, occurs when a particle passes from one quantum state to another without possessing the energy to leave its current potential energy well. In effect, the particle tunnels through the potential energy barrier rather than climbing over it.
What does this have to do with Windows? Tunneling is also a remarkable trick from Windows 95's developers. This trick allows old DOS and Windows programs to update files with long names, without losing the original long filename information.
When applications software updates an existing file, it usually performs three steps:
1. It gives the old file a new, temporary name.
2. It creates a new file with the old file's original name.
3. It removes the old file, which now sports a temporary name.
If the application program understands and maintains Windows 95's long filenames, all is well. The new file it created in step 2 will bear the same long filename as the original.
But if an application program doesn't know about Windows 95's long filenames, something could go awry in step 2. Instead of long filenames, older programs only see the substitute, truncated 8.3 filename that Windows 95 assigns. When creating the new file, the older application will specify the truncated name instead of the longer version.
But Windows 95 is not so easily fooled. It knows how application programs behave, and watches for the rename/create/remove sequence. When it detects this pattern it automatically transfers the old file's long filename to the new file.
The long filename appears to "tunnel" from one version of the file to the next.This feature is useful most of the time. But it can defeat the operation of LFNBK.EXE, which tries to remove long filename information. That's one reason Windows 95 lets you disable and reenable tunneling.
To disable tunneling, follow these steps:
1 Double-click on Control Panel's System icon.
2 When the System Properties dialog appears, select its Performance tab, then click on the File System button.
3 When the File System Properties dialog appears, select its Troubleshooting tab, then select the Disable Long Name Preservation for Old Programs check box.
4 Click on OK and restart your computer when asked.
To enable tunneling, follow the same steps but in step 3, remove the check in the box labeled Disable Long Name Preservation for Old Programs.