FREE Great Programs for Windows 7

Tepid said:

MilesAhead said:

I was looking for a way to change the order of shortcuts in the Explorer Navigation Pane. Turns out it really can't be done. (You can drag Favorites around, but not the other shortcuts.) I wanted Computer at the top. But I achieved nearly the effect I wanted using:
Windows 7 Navigation Pane Customizer: Show, Hide, Rename Items In Windows Explorer Navigation Pane | door2windows

I only left Libraries and Computer enabled. I collapsed Libraries and expanded Computer. Now to change to another drive I don't have to vertical scroll.

Plus it does not require a reboot. When you click Apply you can see Explorer gets restarted as the desktop flickers for a second. Nice little freebie!!

I have not used this app,, but according to this post on that site...

Currently when it restarts Explorer.exe, it restarts it as admin as it's elevated itself. Can you make Explorer launch a regular non-elevated process or can you make it not restart Explorer automatically but tell users to log off and log back on? Running Explorer as admin isn't a good thing from a security perspective.

Check to make sure that this app is not starting Explorer.exe as Admin. This would be a big huge no no and a security risk.

And how would you do that?
In Task Manager it shows all copies of Explorer under my user id, not as Administrator.

In fact you can find Reg hack pages that do the same thing. Except it's tedious. You have to change permissions for shell then change hex numbers in each shortcut to get rid of it. I assume this just runs as Admin so it can change those reg keys. The reg hack way is far more prone to error since you're pasting in 8 digit hex numbers.

edit: should go without saying anytime you use anything from an OS customizaton software site you should make a restore point right before using it.

This seems a lot less risky than modifying system dlls for themes though.

MilesAhead said:

This seems a lot less risky than modifying system dlls for themes though.

otoh clicking on a drive letter in the navigation pane isn't all that great. The current page will shift there. To open in a new window I have to right click the mouse, then click Open In New Window in the context menu.

Instead I just added a hotkey to one that I always have running anyway. If I Shift Middle Mouse Click with Explorer the active window, it puts up a ToolTip telling me to press a key. For example if I then press G, if G:\ exists it will open it in a new window.

I'm going to just put back the libraries and such as it's more useful to have common folders in the download save dialogs.

If anyone else wants the Hotkey with the drive letter thingie download Transpose from my site:

Hotkeys

The navigation customize would be worth doing if you could change the order of the listing. Otherwise it's pretty limiting.

hi all :)
here is a nice free program to look at your drive contents in a mapped out style SpaceSniffer

Latest release is 1.1.3.1
SpaceSniffer is a portable tool application that lets you understand how folders and files are structured on your disks. By using a Treemap visualization layout, you have immediate perception of where big folders and files are placed on your devices. Treemap concept was invented by Prof. Ben Shneiderman, who kindly permitted the use of his concept into this tool.

Start a scan process and see the overall situation. Bigger are the elements on the view, bigger are folders and files on your disk. You need more detail on a big folder? Just single click on it. The selected element will be detailed with its content.

Need more and more detail? Keep selecting elements and they'll discover their secrets to you. Need a larger view of a small folder? Then double click on it, and it'll zoom to the full extent of the view.

WEB >> SpaceSniffer, find lost disk space the easy way.

DOWNLOAD >> SpaceSniffer download

Yep, Spacesniffer and irfanview are already on the list. :)

I must of looked at the wrong one. Irfanview portable added. :)

Fold 1.0.0.0 Fold.exe is a command line Windows utility for XP and later. Although it really shines on Windows Seven. It reads a plain text file of folder names, then opens and places them on the desktop.

This is another of my quickie creations. :)

You may download from this page:
Faves Downloads

I found even though I wrote several hotkey tools for opening recent folders, that there were combinations of folders I used many times and I still had not come up with an easy way to open them as a set. File managers with quad windows may be a solution but I haven't found a free one that seemed stable and predictable.

The basic idea of Fold is you feed it a file of folder names. If the number of folders is 4 or less the vertical space used is limited to 95% of the vertical desktop work area. This should leave enough room for stuff like RocketDock and other gizmos kept just above the TaskBar.

At the moment it's hard wired with TaskBar at the bottom.
If there are more than 4 folders, all windows are minimized first, to avoid app windows being resized, then the folders are opened and placed using the OS horizontal tiling API.

See the Readme for details.
Before gasping in horror at the thought of typing at the command line, see the Suggestion in the Readme. If you are on Windows7 it's very easy to associate .fld extension with Fold.exe and pin folder sets to the Fold icon on SuperBar. Once you make a few sets of folders you can just right click, then click and Bingo!! A set of folders you use together comes up.

If you don't want to register a file type association then I suggest putting a shortcut to Fold.exe in your SendTo folder.

Another nice feature of using this on Windows7, when you're done right click the Explorer shortcut on SuperBar and click Close All Windows.

Edit: Updated to 1.1.0.0. Now has .ini file setting PercentMargin. If you want it flush to TaskBar you can set PercentMargin to 0 or as high as 25. It calls GetWorkArea and compares that to screen res to figure out which side of the screen the TaskBar is on, then leaves a gap or Margin so that opening 4 or fewer folders won't cover any launchers or other toolbars in the gap.

Edit: Updated to 1.2.0.0 Now only resorts to Tile Window API with more than 6 folders. 6 and less it should set the TaskBar gap. See Readme.txt for details and required Explorer settings.

Edit: Updated to 1.3.0.0 Increased the threshold to 8 folders. Tuned delays a bit to give larger groups of folders more time to open.

Edit: Updated to 1.6.0.0 Among other minor changes, comments are written to .ini file detailing valid range and default for PercentMargin option. Run with no args shows version number and usage info.



Anyway, here's a screen shot of 4 folders opened just by clicking an .fld file.

i cant see flux on the list so heres a link, flux will adjust the screen brightness automatically anyway check the link its all there
F.lux: software to make your life better