Best Free Windows Explorer Add-ons
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In a Hurry?
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Introduction
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File Managers, like cars, are things people feel strongly about and remain deeply personal.
http://www.techsupportalert.com/best-free-file-manager.htm Perhaps it's mostly about familiarity and trust. Windows Explorer is used by many "who don't see what the fuss is about", and they point to its impressive speed and how easy it is to use.
This Article explains how to enhace Windows Explorer so that it has all the desirable features of commercial File Managers including dual-pane, tabbing, cloning etc., while retaining speed and familiarity. |
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Discussion
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The killer enhancement is QTTabBar. (Only Windows XP and Vista.) We couldn't recommend this product until now, simply because it lacked all instructions or documentation. That's now been fixed, and although the instructions still aren't much cop.... the product is a wonder.
You can see the toolbar in the illustration above. As well as Tabs (like in FireFox), it allows you to clone the current Explorer window (dual-pane), or copy it, with a single click. Enhanced Search is also provided so you can fine-tune file searches. But there's much more. Double-click on an empty part of your Desktop to display:
Click anywhere in the above to display an "Immediate access" list of folders. Click on any item in the list to immediately open Explorer with that folder as root.
This barely scratches the surface of what is a very powerful, easy-to-use utility that may significantly change the way in which you do file-handling. It's very customizable, and rock-solid on my system after three months of heavy Vista use. See: http://www.techsupportalert.com/content/more-about-qttabbar.htm for installation details, and more usage information.
Filebox Extender (from the makers of HyperSnap) effectively adds some useful buttons to Windows Explorer (and most other windows):
The Favorites and Recently Accessed buttons lets you access these folders and documents with one mouse click.These buttons are also added to the standard Open File and Save File dialog boxes, and appear next to the minimize, restore, and maximize buttons with which you're already familiar.
The "push-pin" Always on Top button prevents any window you "pin" to the desktop from being obscured. This is great when you want to keep an eye on one program, but use another. (For example, refer to a document window in Word while typing an E-mail.) The Rollup button can also be displayed on the system menu of any window. This illustratesFavorites setup, and shows other options including Exceptions which tells Filebox Extender to ignore any specified applications.
Filebox Extender can also forcibly resize the standard Windows file management dialog boxes so they're bigger, and easier to use.
Strictly speaking, MmM is a Shell utility or enhancement, but it lets you configure your window's context menus. Remove items you never use; put rarely used functions on a submenu. Keep only those functions you use frequently in a small, tidy base menu. Just drag and drop items to configure.
Folder Size ..... (not for Vista) adds a new column to the Details view in Windows Explorer. The new column shows not only the size of files, but also the size of folders. It keeps track of which folders you view, and scans them in the background so you can see the complete size of all files within the folder.
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Related Products and Links
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Even if you don't want to add extra facilities, you may care to adjust Windows Explorer Properties to your tastes. Although this blog entry only explains how to change its default opening folder, it's a good starting point from which to experiment. Follow this link:
Also, check out our detailed QTTabBar review: |
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2008-2-23 
Unrestricted Freeware 
Windows XP & Vista
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http://www.download3k.com/Mmm-FREE/Download-Free-mmminstall.exe.html
some problems with original d/l source.
Remember to check the options panel in Mmm.
I used it to remove 'scan with threatfire' context menu option and it worked marvellously. But when you turn Mmm off... the context menus are back. For some people it's good. For me it isn't.
is it possible to achieve what MmM does without a 3rd-party program? (i.e. through regedit)
im running vista and have compatibility issues with MmM and also i would like to add more than 1 sub-context menu
was wondering the same thing, how can you add sub-context menus for better organization? does it require a program like mmm?
mmm isnt really vista-compatible :-/
e.g.: have a new sub-context menu with the name of "Scan with"
then under it have "Scan with AVG", "Scan with SUPERantispyware", "Scan using Spybot S&D", etc.
Qt TabBar is a must have app,one of the best is when you hover over an image it enlarges it for quik view,brilliant.
about Folder Size (I've just installed the 2.4 version)
The install file size is 225K (for win32b)
You can of course also use it in any window of folder you open if you don't use Explorer.
You can change the settings of the window to see not only the size of the folders, but also, at the same time, the number of files or/and sub-folders included in each folder.
You can, by the "View" menu, tile everything in the folder sorting by size (folders and files mixed -only the size matters- ), or tile the folders by the number of files or/and sub-folders included...
Ask Windows to use the same settings for all your folders.
It works perfectly in French (I'm Belgian).
Very useful.
Check out this thread that talks about windows xp addons, including explorer addons:
http://forum.maxthon.com/viewthread.php?tid=63662&extra=page%3D1
Check out http://tools.tortoisesvn.net/StExBar.
nice extensions toolabar
The best explorer addon I've EVER used comes with Microsoft's Powertoys. Command prompt here. That is the most useful feature I've ever downloaded from microsoft, allowing you to right click any folder and be at a command prompt at that location.
Strongly agreed.
Are there any reasonable featured more 3D -like explorers for win ? I tried Tactile, but somehow it's a bit too "deep space" and one gets sort of lost easily, in addition it crashed all the time on my xpsp2 dual head environment.
I don't know about the BEST, but whenever I have problems with explorer and file browsing, I use either xplorer2 lite or File Smile. File Smile is more colourful but still has great functionality. xplorer2lite suits me great most of the time. Has tabs, looks at all files and does all I want. Also doesn't hide files or folders if windows decides not to show me them.
http://www.zabkat.com/x2lite.htm
http://www.download.com/File-Smile/3000-2248_4-10289220.html?cdlPid=1053...
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