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Changing properties of multiple files in WinXP?
Mandork:
I've searched all over the web and tried a zillion different programs, but nothing quite seems to do what I want.
I have a bunch (hundreds) of files that I would like to add a "comment" to, in the summary tab of the file properties. As far as I can tell, the only way to access this is to right click-> properties-> summary -> and type in the comment (see screenshot). I have tried selecting several files at once, but when you do this, the summary tab is all greyed out.
Does anyone know of a way to edit several of these at once, or at least more quickly? Even if I could just tab to the same field in the next item on the list, like you can in Windows Media Player (for example), that would be helpful.
I messed around with recording a macro in DoOver, but I don't know how (or if it's possible) to make it generic, so that I could just select a file and hit a hot key that would go straight to the comments field.
Kind of like tagging, only for all files, not just music or photos.
Any suggestions?
mouser:
there has to be a tool for this and it's a really nice question.
anyone?
justice:
If you can give me the keys you press I can whip up a quick autohotkey script that you can assign a hotkey to :)
alt-enter for the properties
then right 3x for the summary tab?
then 6x tab for the commentbox?
f0dder:
The stuff in the "Summary" pane is stored as a NTFS alternate file stream... I wonder if the format is public, and/or easy to reverse engineer. There might be some APIs or COM interface for manipulating this information as well.
* f0dder goes tinkering.
* f0dder is done tinkering:
--- ---C:\q>streams Eula.txt
Streams v1.56 - Enumerate alternate NTFS data streams
Copyright (C) 1999-2007 Mark Russinovich
Sysinternals - www.sysinternals.com
C:\q\Eula.txt:
:♣SummaryInformation:$DATA 144
:{4c8cc155-6c1e-11d1-8e41-00c04fb9386d}:$DATA 0
And look and behold, this CodeProject article might just be of help.
justice:
Until there's a solution that allows you to edit multiple files at a time *winks to f0dder* you can use the following script I enclose below, including AHK source if you feel comfortable with that.
Select a file and press scroll Lock (next to pause/break and printscreen) it will navigate to the comment field.
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