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1251

Announce Your Software/Service/Product / Re: Edit Text Anywhere with Your Favorite Editor [Freeware]

« Last post by rjbull on July 30, 2011, 02:48 PM »

I know that feature to use your editor to modify an edit box from an firefox plugin
and the multiple choice of editors from Total Commander, but this edit text anywhere is great.
I just try it with XYplorer run script dialog to have better edit features.

-AbteriX (July 29, 2011, 02:33 AM)

@AbteriX: Do you have a recent version of Channing's Listary as well?  If so, try loading Total Commander and XYplorer together, but with different active directories.  Next load a text editor and open its File Open dialog.  Then Alt-Tab between the File Open dialog and the two file managers - and watch how the File Open dialog changes  

1252

General Software Discussion / Re: Windows Update disaster - recovery help, please!

« Last post by rjbull on July 30, 2011, 02:33 PM »

I haven't been able to find out anything about the second one you list, but the first one, KB2507938, has been on Windows Secrets' Install list since mid-July.  Hope that helps.

-cyberdiva (July 29, 2011, 06:02 PM)

Does being on the Windows Secrets list mean they consider it in quarantine?  They're recommending you defer installation until it's status is clearer?

Turns out there's a thread on some of the same updates in the Windows Secrets forum - Latest batch of Vista updates failed to install.

Looks like I'm going to have to get to know Windows Secrets forums 

1253

Announce Your Software/Service/Product / Re: Edit Text Anywhere with Your Favorite Editor [Freeware]

« Last post by rjbull on July 29, 2011, 02:53 PM »

I've been using version 1 for a while and it's completely replaced Firefox extension It's All Text!.  Look forward to the new features 

1254

General Software Discussion / Re: Windows Update disaster - recovery help, please!

« Last post by rjbull on July 29, 2011, 02:39 PM »

I don't understand why you keep updating Vista, it is not being updated with new features or anything really important. If you security programs are good, you need not to update Vista at all.

-Curt (July 24, 2011, 04:52 PM)

I've been wondering myself, as I run Online Armor firewall with HIPS, and F-Prot AV. 

There's slightly more to the updates, as can be seen from the screenshot of what Vista thinks I should install.  E.g., IE 9.  I'm somewhat surprised by the update system, as I've already hidden a security update for PowerPoint 2007, that Vista had failed repeatedly to install.  That's probably because I don't have 2007 (that I know of...) as I have Office 2010.  Yet, Vista doesn't automatically mark SP1 for Office 2010.

I've marked the two updates that I think gave me problems.  Suppose I ought to look for any reports from anyone else...

1255

Finished Programs / Re: when I download files.

« Last post by rjbull on July 27, 2011, 02:17 PM »

I use Listary Pro, but there are plenty of features in the free version, and a portable version is available.

1256

Living Room / Re: Are we allowed to avoid the "My Docs" mess in Win7?

« Last post by rjbull on July 27, 2011, 02:10 PM »

What does Listary pro give you that Listary doesn't?  I see the comparison, but I don't really understand the missing features.

-wraith808 (July 24, 2011, 03:57 PM)

Apologies for delayed reply.  Your query made me take another look at the comparison.  As I recall it, early versions of Listary restricted most of the dialog box extender features to the Pro version.  It looks like this has changed somewhat, and quite good ones are included in the free-for-personal-use version.  I'm still exploring the new features myself.  Select last opened file automatically means that when you reopen a File Open dialog, that last file will already be in the file box, same with last saved file.  Export list content to a CSV file means (obviously), make a directory listing.  But, given that Listary is free for personal use, and has a portable version as well as an install one, you might find it worth taking a look yourself...

1257

Living Room / Re: Are we allowed to avoid the "My Docs" mess in Win7?

« Last post by rjbull on July 24, 2011, 03:36 PM »

[edit] then I'm back looking for a dialogue extender for save/open. Ah well, just what I'm used to... [/edit]

-tomos (July 24, 2011, 02:14 PM)

Listary works well for me on Vista, but you really need the payware version, $19.95 lifetime license, for a dialog box extender.

1258

General Software Discussion / Re: Windows Update disaster - recovery help, please!

« Last post by rjbull on July 24, 2011, 03:29 PM »

The story, continued:

Now having a working PC again, I tried Stoic Joker's idea of testing the updates one by one.  I got into a mess...  I uninstalled at least one update using Uninstall rather than going back to a restore point.  The same problems as before occurred, only now I didn't seem to have a restore point I could go back to, to correct things.  So I was left with having to restore a disk image.  This was heart-in-mouth, because I hadn't done it before, and because TeraByte Image for DOS (IFD) reported an error.  I had to say, just keep going, and eventually got things back as they were.  Of course now I'm worried that the error will come back to bite me.  IFD didn't say what kind of error.

I'm now left with a dilemma.  If I don't install (some of) the updates, I may have a security hole.  If I do install them, I have a high risk of Windows destroying itself.  Not a happy choice, is it?  If a similar disaster happens again, I might consider starting from scratch with a shrink-wrapped copy of Win7.  No guarantee of avoiding another Update from Hell, but the OS is generally said to be better, so may as well get that benefit.  But reinstalling all those programs and data would not be fun.

While the main laptop has been waiting attention, I got a quick look at the Web with my old Win98 laptop, but it's getting long in the tooth.  Or rather, the OS is.  I'd guess the hardware is still good for a while.  So I need to think about some kind of backup machine for e-mail and Web stuff, maybe a netbook or other cheap laptop.

I subscribed to the Windows Secrets newsletter.  I searched their archive but couldn't immediately see any comments on the updates I think might have been responsible.  I was disappointed that the first one didn't come as an e-mail newsletter rather than a link to a Web page, especially as it doesn't even contain a contents list or synopsis, other than the title.  I'd rather minimize the effort of checking the integrity of updates, something we should be able to take for granted.

Thanks for all the suggestions.  Wouldn't it be nice if we had computers that just worked...

1259

General Software Discussion / Windows Update disaster - recovery help, please!

« Last post by rjbull on July 18, 2011, 10:54 AM »

Windows Update disaster - recovery help, please!

I run Vista Home Premium, when it will let me.  It has automatic updates.  I get tired of the interminable disk-thrashing and resource usage of Windows updates, which mean I can barely use the laptop while they're downloading, but until recently things have worked properly afterwards.  Last week I was cursed with a toxic update. After rebooting, it wouldn't let me into my user account, saying that it couldn't start a Windows service.  It would, however, let me into the admin account, though without Internet access, again because it couldn't start a (different, I think) Windows service.  Oh, joy.  Lack of Internet access nowadays means no easy way to get help.

Symptoms:

Access violation at address 00723159 in module "oauie.exe."  Write of address 00000050.

WiFi said

Connection status: Unknown.  The dependency service or group failed to start.

Tried Diagnose > Windows Wireless Service is not running on this computer > Start Wireless Service > Windows cannot resolve this problem.  Please contact your network administrator or ISP.
Well, the admin is me.  It's my own machine.  This is Vista Home Premium, after all.

From the admin account, a bubble appeared from the tray:

Windows could not connect to the System Event Notification Service.  This problem prevents limited access users from logging on to the system.  As an administrative user, you can review the System Event Log for details about why the service did not respond.

Of course, being Windows, it doesn't tell you the exact name of the log, nor its location.
         

I didn't know what to do.  My first glum thought was to restore from a disk image, glum because I knew the image would be out of date, and I would lose things.  So I set out to back up as much data as possible to a removable drive, knowing most existing backups would be at least slightly out of date.  Windows UAC keeps accounts in sealed boxes, so even though I could load SynchBack Pro, it behaved as a new unregistered program and I couldn't quickly work out how if at all to pick up its configuration. Likewise with TheBat!, which was serious because that's my e-mail. I copied over all data files I could think of using Total Commander, which has a very nice directory synchronization feature. Windows doesn't make this easy because data seems scattered all over the place. Then I wanted to check what programs I'd installed since last disk image, so looked in Total Uninstall to see if it could make a simple list.  It can, but, I also found it had a menu entry, System restore. Ah-haaah... I'd forgotten that, never having had to use it before. So, with little to lose, I tried it, rolling back the latest update, and after rebooting, everything was back to normal.

My first act then was to get out the external drive and make a new disk image.  I found the last one I had was six months old, and my data backups were a month or two old as well.  Mea culpa...  Main point arising: take mouser's constantly reiterated advice to heart - BACKUP, BACKUP, BACKUP!

Now, a day later, the system has downloaded what are presumably the same poisonous updates, because it's done the same thing again. Once more I've had my time wasted on endless downloading, once more I've had to roll the system back, and I feel condemned to a Sisyphean treadmill of repeating the process.

Please can DC help with help on the following?

• Can anyone please recommend a good disaster recovery pocket book?  Something small, to be consulted by fuming people in a hurry, maybe a compilation of trouble-shooting charts, not some massive and pricey tombstone?
• How do I turn off automatic updates? 
• If you're in an admin account, is there a way to run a program as if you were the user, so you get access to the user account's configuration settings and data? Sort of the inverse of elevating from user to admin?
• Who can I complain to or warn?
• And will they listen?
• Given Microsoft's near-monopoly status, and the unimaginable amounts of money it makes, why aren't its products better?  <sigh>

More disk-thrashing...  must be downloading the Update from Hell again...

1260

Finished Programs / Re: [IDEA] Check folder and tell me which PDFs are images (non-searchable)

« Last post by rjbull on July 17, 2011, 04:40 PM »

you may be better off using something like File Hound to search through your PDFs.

-skwire (July 16, 2011, 12:27 PM)

I'm pretty sure Hound uses pdftotext too.  That probably means it ignores image files as being empty of text, which should at least make the search hands-off.

1261

General Software Discussion / EmEditor Core: Paid upgrades for licenses purchased on or after November 1, 2011

« Last post by rjbull on July 10, 2011, 11:18 AM »

EmEditor Core : Paid upgrades for licenses purchased on or after November 1, 2011
Posted by Yutaka on 6/27/2011 2:28:58 pm

Paid upgrades for licenses purchased on or after November 1, 2011

We have been providing free upgrades for EmEditor Professional from v4 through v10. We realize that this is a major benefit for users, and we thoroughly appreciate your participation and support. Unfortunately, due to the recent difficult economic climate, it has become impossible for us to continue offering free upgrades to all users.

Thus, in order to allow us to continue the development of EmEditor, for users who purchase new licenses on or after November 1, 2011, upgrades will be paid. We plan to keep the upgrade fee as low as possible.

Licenses purchased before November 1, 2011 will be the same as before. They are eligible to be upgraded for free as long as they are registered at the Emurasoft Customer Center. The date of purchase can be verified in your purchase history at the Emurasoft Customer Center.


Currently, EmEditor programs are separated into the trial and the full-version. Switching from the trial to the full version requires you to first uninstall the trial and then install the full-version. Beginning with v10.1.0, the trial will become the same as the full-version (as it was in v8 and earlier), and simply entering a registration key during the trial will switch the program to the full-version. We hope that this will make your use of EmEditor smoother and more intuitive. Thank you.


Deadline for product registration for free upgrades

The product registration for free upgrades from EmEditor Professional v8 or earlier that we offer at the Emurasoft Customer Center will end on October 31, 2011. In order to ensure smooth upgrades in the future, if you have a license for EmEditor Professional v8 or earlier, but have not registered your license for a free upgrade, please register your license at Emurasoft Customer Center for the upgrade before November 1, 2011. If you do not register your licenses, the future upgrade eligibility, whether free or paid, will be expire.

1262

General Software Discussion / Re: 7 Freeware Windows Explorer Alternatives / File Managers compared

« Last post by rjbull on July 10, 2011, 10:24 AM »

ZTreeWin (ZTW) is *very* powerful and fast-to-use once you burn the single keystroke commands into your brain. This is one of several programs I have open all the time. Not free, but certainly worth every penny many times over.

-widgewunner (July 09, 2011, 12:31 PM)

I bought my license when they made a ridiculously cheap offer, $9.95 or something.  While XTree Pro was the first file manager I ever used, it's been so long that I've forgotten the hotkeys, which is probably why I use ZTW less than I might.

Maybe a reminder about the XTree Fan Page is in order here.

But then again, picking a file manager is kind of like picking a text editor; - product devotion can border on: religious.

Oh, dear.  Then I'm a heretic in at least three religions... not including editors!

1263

Screenshot Captor / Re: Initial Recommendations

« Last post by rjbull on July 07, 2011, 03:57 PM »

all settings for all of my programs are saved in an ini file (i loathe the registry), the only thing i don't remember is if in Vista what directory it saves it too..

-mouser (August 29, 2007, 04:54 PM)

When I was at work, part of my backup strategy was to run a batch file that ran an archiver, Info-Zip or 7zip, or RAR, that started from the top of the HD and archived up copies of all new/changed INI (and similar) files, using the archiver's options to include child directories and save paths, so the files were automatically saved complete with their full paths.  The archive was put in a directory that was routinely copied to the network and and/or other backup destinations.  While this worked well with DOS or WinXP, it might be more of a problem now because of access permissions through UAC.

1264

Living Room / Re: More ammunition why patents are EVIL

« Last post by rjbull on July 07, 2011, 03:44 PM »

Then again Big Pharma are notoriously evil. Their own records demonstrate that they are disgusting liers.

-Renegade (July 06, 2011, 03:02 PM)

I have heard this before, and have no reason to plead their case.

How can anyone have faith in a system that is so blatantly abused?

By ensuring the system isn't abused?  Isn't that part of what governments are supposed to be for?  That is, I don't think the fundamental problem is having a patent system, it's lackadaisical enforcement and any abuse.

When it comes to medicine, one has to wonder just how genuine the "we want to help people" thing is. [...] But that's an extension from patents to the market, and how things can go horribly wrong in the process there.

Capitalism is very successful in making rich people richer, but almost completely blind to the needs of the sick, most especially if they're poor.

1265

Living Room / Re: More ammunition why patents are EVIL

« Last post by rjbull on July 06, 2011, 08:23 AM »

With the proviso that my experience was related to the ink industry, and people here may be thinking too much of US practice/malpractice, and of software patents:

#1: "Open source" the patent review process. Anyone can submit a patent and once submitted they have first chance at being granted one, but like any patent their application must be reviewed for prior art, uniqueness of the invention, etc. This should be judged by the population at large, not by a relatively few patent evaluators who couldn't possibly individually have the education necessary to properly evaluate evey patent.

-JavaJones (July 11, 2010, 04:04 PM)

It already is, at least in Europe/UK.  That is, as soon as an application is made, anyone can inspect the details.  When I was at work, we used to take Derwent patent bulletins which listed both applications and granted patents in most countries of the world.  I've been to libraries to read the originals, though nowadays you'd just download and read a PDF.  The Japanese Patent Office even has a quite good (if slow) on-the-fly translation system.

90% of patents would probably be thrown out within a week, either because there is significant prior art out there (nothing is better at finding prior art than "the crowd"), or because the invention is obvious and can be demonstrated to be so.

The usual phrase is "obvious to those skilled in the art", i.e. it doesn't have to be obvious to the man in the street as long as it's obvious to people in the industry.

#2: Incentivize the *application* of patented ideas. Or, to look at it another way, discourage or penalize those who patent something and don't actually implement it in a product or service.

I believe that UK law expects the holder to "work the patent."

#4: Patent term reform. [...]I think anything more than 2 or 3 years of market *exclusivity* is unnecessary. If you figure the development of very complex technology may take 3 or 4 years to bring to market, and then add on 2-3 years for sales exclusivity, then perhaps 6-8 years makes more sense. I'd be OK seeing 10.

Big Pharma would be very unhappy with that.  They would contend that the cost of developing and fully testing a new drug is so enormous that they absolutely must have a long term to recover their investment.

1266

Living Room / Re: The law is for YOUR protection. Honest!

« Last post by rjbull on June 30, 2011, 03:30 PM »

You gave me an idea just now - let's request a patent on filing trivial or otherwise cumbersome patents. There's got to be a limit to the amount of fancy wording that one can come up with to describe a trivial single-sentence action.

-worstje (June 29, 2011, 02:15 PM)

There's a patent assigned to IBM that runs into three volumes...  don't know how they got that many words or ideas into it.  Often, though, in the ink formulation patents I saw most of, a lot of the space is given over to example formulations.

1267

Living Room / Re: The law is for YOUR protection. Honest!

« Last post by rjbull on June 30, 2011, 03:27 PM »

Patent laws should have a sanity clause that allows anyone to challenge a patent on the grounds that it is patently bonkers.

-Carol Haynes (June 28, 2011, 05:39 AM)

I think UK patents are already supposed to be for practical, workable devices.  Perpetual motion machines are definitely banned.

There should also be a 'public good' clause that says no patent can be granted where it will infringe on public welfare - and that should include all bio-patents which to me are the very worst of all the patent stupidity foisted on the world by a barmy US system!

Then you have to define "public welfare."  After all, a patent is disclosing somebody's idea, putting that knowledge in the public domain, and eventually (typically 17-20 years) reaching a state where it can be used by anyone without payment.  That in itself might be considered for the public good.

1268

Living Room / Re: The law is for YOUR protection. Honest!

« Last post by rjbull on June 27, 2011, 04:32 PM »

An earlier argument of mine from a lost thread applies - get the Alan Turing Estate to patent the Turing machine and since it is mathematically provable that ALL computers and algorithms are functionally equivalent to a Turning machine no one else would be allowed any patent for any technological 'breakthrough' as it would be covered under the Turning patent.

-Carol Haynes (June 27, 2011, 04:12 PM)

They can't.  If it's been published, and is therefore out in the public domain, it can't be retrospectively patented.

It would also go some way to compensate him for the hideously nasty way he was treated by the UK government.

Bit late...

1269

Living Room / Re: The law is for YOUR protection. Honest!

« Last post by rjbull on June 27, 2011, 04:03 PM »

large companies with the financial and legal resources to work the system have started claiming overly broad patents and then using this legal toehold to stifle / subdue competition.

-Jimdoria (June 27, 2011, 12:06 PM)

They're entitled to a broad patent - if they have truly invented a broad something.  A rise in over-broad patents sounds like another case of patent office failure.

Now imagine you are an inventor who wants to avoid this scenario. What is your due diligence? An exhaustive patent search of any patent that might potentially cover the technology you're thinking of inventing? Better be a rich guy to start with. And once your search is done, you may find that any device you create (or part of any device you create) could conceivably be described by one or more existing patents. So you give up and switch to gardening, which stifles innovation - the exact opposite of the system's original intent.

It's not quite as bad as that, though I know what you mean.  Most of the major patent offices now allow free access to their sites, but it's a tedious business to search them.  You're better off using World Patent Index and/or INPADOC on Dialog or another host system, or Delphion Online, cheaper if a little less good.  But, I maintain that most patents are in fact issued to big companies, and they should have the resources to searches as exhaustive as necessary.  That sounds tough on the small man, but it's a big complicated world now.  In fact, quite simple searches are often all that's necessary to make a yes/no decision on further work.

What's really needed is a more stringent definition of what's patentable. [...] Maybe they should go back to the old system and require an actual, physical implementation of the invention in order to be eligible for the patent.

I think some patent offices have, or at least had, another requirement to keep a patent in force: you had to "work the invention," i.e., you had to make and sell a product based on it.  If you didn't, presumably the invention reverted to the public domain.

1270

Living Room / Re: The law is for YOUR protection. Honest!

« Last post by rjbull on June 27, 2011, 03:46 PM »

another truth is that they all claim to have invented things they never did - and usually the little people who did the hard work in the first place either get screwed or paid money to shut up.

-Carol Haynes (June 26, 2011, 04:31 PM)

As Jimdoria notes, some companies have been awarded patents even where there was prior art, or where the invention was obvious to those skilled in the art.  But that's a failure of the patent office, not necessarily of the legislation itself, and my impression was that the U.S. Patent Office was the worst culprit.  That seems to mean a need for higher-quality staff, more staff, more training, and more moral fibre to stand up to clever presentation.  At times I also wondered if national chauvinism played a part - if it isn't American, it isn't an invention, and who in the homeland cares about those damn foreigners anyway.

To me the perfect illustration of this distortion of legal intent is the companies trying to make trademarks out of normal everyday English and then having the audacity to sue people for daring to use that language themselves!

I too find this action arrogant and unacceptable.  It isn't covered by patent law, though, and (in the UK at least) trademark/trade name law is a lot more lax.

It still doesn't negate my argument that the current patents and trademark systems are not there to protect anyone but rather to allow the wealthy and powerful to abuse smaller companies and individuals with impunity.

In my limited experience of a small corner of manufacturing industry, I feel that's greatly overstating the case...  Is this in danger of becoming a case where urban myths and conspiracy theories are trumping dispassionate argument?

1271

Living Room / Re: The law is for YOUR protection. Honest!

« Last post by rjbull on June 26, 2011, 04:13 PM »

This today from the OSNews website: [...]
In other words, more protection for large companies like Google, Apple, and Microsoft,

-40hz (June 24, 2011, 08:40 AM)

I dunno.  It's easy to rant.  With apologies for not thinking this through very clearly:

I used to help with patent monitoring when I was at work, though in the ink/toner industry, not the software patents that have got everyone so excited.  Some people seem to talk as if patents were deliberately created by government as a bureaucratic tool for big companies to stifle progress, especially if it's made by the small guy.  It's more a case of big companies warily circling round each other.  They quite naturally want commercial advantage and don't want their concepts making money for the competition too early.  Don't forget that a patent is a contract between the assignee and the public, giving the assignee a monopoly on the use of the invention, subject to some conditions, for a limited period, after which the invention passes into the public domain and can be used by anyone without payment.  In other words, the big companies are in fact revealing (within the parameters of the patenting game) what they're doing, and eventually their competitors will be able to use the invention for free.  OK, not for a long time, but the principle is there.

The U.S. patent system has always had certain peculiarities, as compared with the rest of the world.  It insists on "first to invent," rather than "first to file."  Although that sounds like morally higher ground, it's in fact a lawyers' paradise.  You can riffle through the European Patent Office's documentation and clearly establish who got there first - but it's going to be very hard indeed to assess the claims of two competing companies from lab notebooks or whatever, and very expensive too.  Rightly or wrongly, the insistence on "first to invent" has always seemed to me to assume that almost all inventions, and certainly the game-changing ones, are made by individuals or duos working in a garage.  Well, those do happen, but in my experience, very rarely indeed.  The great majority of patents came from fairly large companies, were mostly made by teams, and assigned to the companies those teams worked for.  The inventions might not even be particularly innovative, but they should have enough novelty to qualify, and sometimes gain their owners a owners a temporarly advantage.  So perhaps patents are a big company game, but in the main the players are big companies.

1272

General Software Discussion / Re: web clipping

« Last post by rjbull on June 19, 2011, 03:31 PM »

Agree with the comments about Local Website Archive.  I love that it saves pages in html, but it does not seem to be updated much. 

-kfitting (June 19, 2011, 01:50 PM)

I use it when I want to make an accurate verbatim copy of a page, but not much for anything else.  I mostly use EverNote 2.2 for general stuff.  I tried UR for a while, but it seemed just too complicated.

- No multi-page capture means if an article does not support single page view you get a bunch of entries for the same article (once again, asked about this but not going to be supported)

I once used IDM = Internet Download Manager to download most of a Web site, which worked quite well, but I wouldn't rate it a routine operation.

There have been a few mentions of Canaware NetNotes on DC, but I haven't tried it.  FreewareGenius review is Canaware NetNotes: capture web pages then store and edit them within a local knowledge base.

1273

Living Room / Re: What books are you reading?

« Last post by rjbull on June 17, 2011, 06:16 AM »

Currently reading: a tale etched in blood and hard black pencil by Christopher Brookmyre, one of his free-standing novels (i.e., not part of a series).

[Edit 2011-06-19, 20:53]
Finished it now.  I was expecting an exuberantly rude story like his first novel, Quite Ugly One Morning, but this is different.  Lots of schoolboy bad language and scatology, but cleverly constructed and well written.
[/Edit]

Synopsis:

We could tell you about the bodies. We could tell you their names, where they were found, the state they were in. We could tell you about the suspects too, the evidence, the investigators; join a few dots, even throw you a motive. But what would be the point? You’re going to make your own assumptions anyway. After all, you know these people, don’t you? You went to school with them. We all did. Granted, that was twenty years ago, but how much does anybody really change? Exactly. So if you really knew them then, you’ll already have all the answers. If you really knew them then…

Put on your uniform and line up in an orderly fashion for the funniest and most accurate trip back to the classroom you are likely to read, as well as a murder mystery like nothing that has gone before it. Forget the forensics: only once you’ve been through school with this painfully believable cast of characters will you be equipped to work out what really happened decades later. Even then, you’ll probably guess wrong and be made to stand in the corner.

1274

Living Room / Re: What books are you reading?

« Last post by rjbull on June 17, 2011, 05:50 AM »

Harlan Ellison is a minor deity. However he's just starting to become eclipsed. I Have No Mouth is fading just a little to 1984 and Fahrenheit 451.

-TaoPhoenix (June 12, 2011, 03:23 PM)

That's a good point, and one I hadn't thought of.  Well put.

1275

General Software Discussion / Re: 7 Freeware Windows Explorer Alternatives / File Managers compared

« Last post by rjbull on June 06, 2011, 03:52 PM »

I know it's not free, but XYplorer is the fastest file manager I've tried.

-superboyac (June 06, 2011, 01:16 PM)

Remember the fairly short-lived free version?  It's still available at Pricelessware's ftp list.  It's quite old now - 2006 - and XY is one of the most frequently updated programs I know of, so would be missing lots of things in the current version.

Actually, the real fastest would be total commander, but it's interface is not very "normal".

(Cue pantomime chorus)  Oh yes it is!  It's Windows that's abnormal!  As I have said before, for this old-time DOS person, Total Commander was the first thing that made using Windows almost semi-tolerable.  It's true it's payware, but it's modestly priced and I've never had to pay for an upgrade in something like 11 years.

Much the same comments would, for me, apply to the excellent ZTreeWin, inasmuch as, for a while, XTree Pro was my interface for DOS.  ZTW is console-mode, though, which won't play well with people who started with the WinGUI.