What's your preferred File Manager

[fenixproductions]

2X_FiLeS
TC did not start to be called differently. TC UP is still TC but with additional tools and plugins. You could have the same package done by yourself if you want to

Ultima took his own configuration and decided to share it with other people (with Ghisler's agreement of course).

[Darwin]

The Novatix re-incarnation of PowerDesk that they dubbed Explorer Plus is without a doubt the most desirable version of the PowerDesk siblings.

-Innuendo (April 26, 2009, 11:11 AM)

Incidentally, I forgot to ask above (when posting the download link), what are the advantages of Explorer Plus 6.2 over the current PowerDesk version (7.x)?

[Innuendo]

Incidentally, I forgot to ask above (when posting the download link), what are the advantages of Explorer Plus 6.2 over the current PowerDesk version (7.x)?

-Darwin (April 26, 2009, 01:18 PM)

It's been a while since I used either program as I'm a Total Commander devotee, but if I remember correctly there were a few bugs that Explorer Plus 6.2 fixed over PowerDesk Pro 6.0 when it was released. It wasn't anything major. I think it had to do with file listings and minor things like that.

However, when PowerDesk Pro 7 came out it fixed a couple bugs that were in Explorer Plus, but...didn't fix all the bugs that Explorer Plus had fixed over PD Pro v6 so you had to choose which bugs you wanted to deal with. No version released has fixed them all.

My absolute favorite feature of this family of products is the enlarged thumbnail of graphics files when you hover over the filenames with your mouse cursor. That's something I haven't figured out yet how to add to Total Commander.

[Darwin]

Thanks, innuendo  I'm a DOpus devotee (but own a licence for TC and love it as well), so understand your position!

[Innuendo]

You're a very unusual person, Darwin. Usually people either the DOpus way of doing things or the TC way of doing things, but not usually both.

DOpus had its origins on the Amiga & the odd thing about your post is that the Amiga version of DOpus was a really big inspiration for TC's author to bring that kind of power and customizability to the PC. What's odd is that TC is probably a closer relative of DOpus/Amiga than DOpus/PC and TC is probaby more true to the 'spirit' of that venerable program on the Amiga than its modern day descendant of the same name.

Back to PowerDesk Pro and Explorer Plus, for a minute...there's no possible way to find a retail copy of Explorer Plus anymore. Looking at the author's site seems to paint the story that Explorer Plus never existed. The trial you expertly tracked down is a poor substitute for the full product. Without delving too far into sketchy legalities I will say I just did a check and the 18.9 MB archive of the full retail product is up on a major P2P network.

However, I have to urge anyone who loves the PowerDesk way of doing things to take a good close look at Total Commander. It is, by far, the ugliest program on the face of the Earth when you first install it, but everything you see can be customized and changed even the menus so you could customize Total Commander to look and work exactly like PowerDesk Pro if it was one's inclination, but it is going to be a far more powerful program for file management than PowerDesk Pro ever was or most likely ever will be.

[Darwin]

You're a very unusual person, Darwin.

-Innuendo (May 03, 2009, 03:57 PM)

Heh, heh... So I've been told!

I own a licence for PowerDesk 7 (and 6, for that matter) but don't have it (either) installed anymore. DOpus is all I use day to day. I have purchased licenses for almost all the major file managers available - TC, XYPlorer, explorer2, FileBoss, FileQest, Altap Salamander, Frigate 3, etc. but have only DOpus installed on my harddrive with XYPlorer and TC installed on my thumbdrives (along with DOpus!). I have had TC installed and tweaked to perfection and love it. Howver, DOpus is no like a well worn pair of shoes - so comfortable and familar   

[Tuxman]

I would actually vote Directory Opus, but no lifetime license with this price is a no-go for me.

So currently I basically use two file managers:
1) CubicExplorer, still in first steps of development but already fast and stable with a bunch of useful extra features. And it is free.
2) xplorer², the fastest FM on the "market". Using your regedit skills, you can also assign My Computer to it, although the developer doesn't really support this ...

Alternative:  Nomad.NET is very feature-rich (and free), too, but the major con is that it is developed in C#, so it's sluggish and hogs resources. A pity, really...

[Curt]

1) CubicExplorer, still in first steps of development

-Tuxman (October 02, 2009, 03:25 PM)

http://www.cubicreality.com/wiki/   

[lanux128]

Turbo Navigator - "Last Freeware Version"
http://www.321downlo...tFreeware/page6.html
Current Status uncertain

-Steven Avery (April 25, 2009, 05:55 PM)

Turbo Navigator is an old favourite, still good for a place in the thumb drive. unfortunately the author has stopped updating/developing the program. recently i found a site that has the program available for download.

• http://www.turbonavigator.info/

[Innuendo]

Turbo Navigator is an old favourite, still good for a place in the thumb drive. unfortunately the author has stopped updating/developing the program. recently i found a site that has the program available for download.

-lanux128 (December 06, 2009, 05:29 AM)

Oh, that's a fine program. I used it a lot back when it was still being developed. It was a very sad day when it was abandoned.

[exjoburger]

So many to chose from. I use FreeCommander a lot, even though I have a license for Total Commander.
I also use Windows Exploder, seem to have got used to it.

[TucknDar]

I used it a lot back when it was still being developed

-Innuendo (December 06, 2009, 09:03 AM)

So did I. Turbo Navigator was my first non-Explorer file manager, and I used it until I discovered the wonders of Windows Commander (as Total Commander was known back then).

[Innuendo]

So did I. Turbo Navigator was my first non-Explorer file manager, and I used it until I discovered the wonders of Windows Commander (as Total Commander was known back then).

-TucknDar (December 06, 2009, 02:31 PM)

Ha! Same here! I discovered Total Commander's plugins and there was just no going back to Explorer or Turbo Navigator.

[sri]

So many to chose from. I use FreeCommander a lot, even though I have a license for Total Commander.
I also use Windows Exploder, seem to have got used to it.

-exjoburger (December 06, 2009, 02:25 PM)

 

[IL1keT0Donate]

The Novatix re-incarnation of PowerDesk that they dubbed Explorer Plus is without a doubt the most desirable version of the PowerDesk siblings. As of the last published version v6.2 it had all of the bugs fixed that were/are in every other iteration of the product.

Unfortunately, Novatix axed the product and last time I checked they were focused on network security products & there's no way to buy the product. If the PowerDesk way of doing things is anyone's 'groove', so to speak then it'd be very advantageous for one to track down a copy of Explorer Plus v6.2.

-Innuendo (April 26, 2009, 11:11 AM)

When the links were still working I contacted Novatix and was informed that ExplorerPlus was written by the person who wrote/compiled the original and earlier versions of PowerDesk (before it got sold to a number of companies like VCOM Avanquest etc).

History (taken from a horses mouth source): ExplorerPlus was originally released in 2003 and was a Novatix Corporation product.  In May of 2005, however, that Novatix Corporation officially changed its name to SendPhotos, Inc. and that was where you could find ExplorerPlus being supported until just recently (late 2006).  (A new different Novatix was also formed whose focus was solely on behavior-based security products.)

But although ExplorerPlus was a great file manager and possibly even better or more reliable than PowerDesk v6 or v7, I doubt that it works glitch free in Windows 7 32 bit (and don't even think about 64bit).

So now that my newish notebook will have Win 7 installed and Vista sent packing I'm trawling through this topic to find a browser that works the way I'd like a File Manager too.

I like to see all file & foder details (not just icons or listings) and also see true file sizes not round ups. I'd like a dialog tracker to find recently opened files & folders, quick viewer pane and an indexing search engine built into the program if possible.

[Innuendo]

When the links were still working I contacted Novatix and was informed that ExplorerPlus was written by the person who wrote/compiled the original and earlier versions of PowerDesk (before it got sold to a number of companies like VCOM Avanquest etc).

History (taken from a horses mouth source): ExplorerPlus was originally released in 2003 and was a Novatix Corporation product.  In May of 2005, however, that Novatix Corporation officially changed its name to SendPhotos, Inc. and that was where you could find ExplorerPlus being supported until just recently (late 2006).  (A new different Novatix was also formed whose focus was solely on behavior-based security products.)

-IL1keT0Donate (January 15, 2010, 12:40 AM)

Yes, I am quite familiar with the story, but thanks for posting it here for those who didn't know. I was too lazy to type all that out. I'd love to see the author come back and release a new file manager. It'd be interesting to see what new tricks he would come up with.

But although ExplorerPlus was a great file manager and possibly even better or more reliable than PowerDesk v6 or v7, I doubt that it works glitch free in Windows 7 32 bit (and don't even think about 64bit).

Oh, definitely. It wasn't 100% glitch-free on XP, its target platform, but it did some neat stuff & did it rather well, too.

I like to see all file & foder details (not just icons or listings) and also see true file sizes not round ups. I'd like a dialog tracker to find recently opened files & folders, quick viewer pane and an indexing search engine built into the program if possible.

You sound like your needs lean towards being a power user so I would suggest you start your search with looking at Directory Opus, XYplorer, and Total Commander.

I feel need to point out that after installing Total Commander it will appear to be the most sparse regarding features. This is very misleading as it is rather like Firefox in that its functionality can be extended through plugins. Everything can be changed including the toolbar icons & even the pull-down menus. It is definitely the cadillac of orthodox file managers (orthodox being the term to describe all file managers that are clones of Norton Commander).

If something more Explorer-like is more to your tastes then concentrate on Directory Opus and XYplorer. Directory Opus is approximately as configurable and as extensible as Total Commander, but unfortunately, it is priced quite high.

XYplorer has just recently had a significant price increase so you may want to check out the pricing on that before you proceed, but at least the author offers a lifetime license (as does Total Commander).

There are numerous freeware choices available as well (like Free Commander), but I will let others cover those. None of the ones I briefly tried could stack up to my crazy OCD-level criteria.

Any of these should handle your list of criteria except for perhaps the built-in indexing search engine. I don't think any file manager I have ever seen (and I have trialed well over 40) has one of those. However, there is a plugin for Total Commander that allows it to interface with Locate32.

[More]

Windows Explorer mostly, sometimes Far

[Darwin]

Obviously i like Directory Opus the most.

-lele0124 (February 03, 2010, 09:14 PM)

Er, why should this be obvious 

[J-Mac]

OK, I just have to ask this once again; I've asked here and elsewhere in the past and have never gotten very good replies.

I purchased Total Commander - oh, about 20 years ago, it seems. Well, actually it was probably sometime in 2003, right around the time Christian was forced by MS to change the name from Windows Commander. License was sent via postal mail on a 1.44 MB floppy!

Anyway, though I still use TC for certain functions I have never been able to comfortably adopt it as my default, daily-use file manager. The UI is just different enough to confound me when I try to use it for all things file-related. I keep hearing - everywhere but also in this thread, all throughout - that the plug-ins make TC extremely configurable. While that may be technically true I have never found the TC plug-in system to be friendly at all. To the contrary as a matter of fact! I would search for plug-ins - they were once spread all over the web though now most are kept on one site - and install a few that sounded useful but then had to install and configure them within TC. ANd there were never any clear instructions for that. Instructions, yes; clear? Well, not exactly crystal - and I pretty much need "crystal" clear!

If my plug-ins did not work as expected I would post in the TC forum - which in itself has been a trip at times; I've had three separate usernames there. (Christian used to delete the usernames that were not active frequently!) Most of the time when I did post I would get a lot of advice; unfortunately not much of it agreed with other advice in the same thread. Oftentimes I would find out that the plug-ins I installed were not current; I was told I shouldn’t have used those but instead should have used others. It was always confusing enough to drive me back to something else.

Yet I continually see posts here about how easy TC customization is. What am I missing? Or does it require a lot of tweaking, constant tweaking?

Thanks for comments.

Jim

[Innuendo]

Yet I continually see posts here about how easy TC customization is. What am I missing? Or does it require a lot of tweaking, constant tweaking?

-J-Mac (February 07, 2010, 12:57 AM)

I would have thought fenix would have jumped on this reply by now, but since I have just stumbled upon it I'll relate my experience. I've used Total Commander for years. I even used it for years before it was renamed Total Commander from Windows Commander, but I mostly just used it for basic things & had a few (5-7 or so) highly recommended plugins. Once I won a free license here on DonationCoder I resolved to start using TC in earnest.

First thing I did to achieve my goal was I browsed the two major sites for Total Commander plugins & utilities (http://www.totalcmd.net and http://en.totalcmd.pl) while keeping in mind what functionality I'd like to see in TC. I downloaded the strongest candidates in each plugin category for comparison later.

I also downloaded some non-plugin stuff like petermad's excellent extended menu for TC (adds functionality & breaks up the menus a little differently than stock), Plugin Manager (will keep track of your plugins for you & will even install & uninstall them effortlessly) and Ultra TC Editors.

After I did that I headed over to http://www.ghisler.ch and read up in the plugin sub-forum to see if there were any last caveats or recommendations against the plugins I had chosen to use.

I won't lie to you. All this took a whole afternoon to set up, installed and get going properly. However, it was a one-time thing & I'll never have to do it again as just backing up your TC directory will preserve your entire setup for eternity. Now I just stop by those three web sites every couple weeks to see if there are any updates to the things I'm using & any updated components unzip and install in a matter of seconds.

In case you're curious at the end of my search I've got 41 plugins installed and co-existing peacefully, but my journey has just begun. I still have a lot to learn about the built-in functionality of TC & when I find myself on Google searching for something to manipulate a file I stumble across a post on http://www.ghisler.ch and find out that TC can do it already.

So, yeah...you're going to spend some time up front getting everything set up the way you want, but once you do it's going to make your file management chores so much easier & save you much more time in the long run.

I'm far from an expert, but I'll help you get up to speed as best I can if you'd like.

[J-Mac]

Thanks for the info!

I guess one of my biggest problems was that I never saw any "Plug-in Manager". Every time I started having problems I would have to go around trying to find the plug-in pages for the ones I had (they didn't used to all be on one or two pages, but were kinda scattered all over the  place!). That was the only way to find out if they had become outdated. And a lot of times no one was maintaining the sites where I had gotten certain plug-ins, so it was really difficult to find out if my TC problems were related to specific plug-ins or not. And to be honest the forum help has been, well, let's say "spotty" at times in the past. Like, only getting sarcastic replies from experienced users who couldn't understand why anyone didn't know all that they did. I probably just caught a few a-holes on those occasions; all forums seem to have them!

Anyway I'll surf around a bot, though right now Directory Opus is pretty much covering all I need. Never know what I am missing though unless I keep looking!

Thanks again!

Jim

[Innuendo]

I guess one of my biggest problems was that I never saw any "Plug-in Manager".

-J-Mac (February 13, 2010, 06:02 PM)

The plugin manager I referenced in my last post may be found here:

http://www.totalcmd....ring/tc_plugman.html

And if basic installing of plugins is all you are after usually just double-clicking on the zip of the plugin you want to install from within TC will walk you through installing it. Things have really come a long way from the good ol' days.

Every time I started having problems I would have to go around trying to find the plug-in pages for the ones I had (they didn't used to all be on one or two pages, but were kinda scattered all over the  place!).

I agree. It's a less than ideal setup. It's much the same situation as foobar2000 & its plugins.

Anyway I'll surf around a bot, though right now Directory Opus is pretty much covering all I need. Never know what I am missing though unless I keep looking!

Directory Opus is awesome. It's the most powerful Explorer-style file manager on the market today (although XYplorer is gaining ground). The only thing that keeps me from owning a license is the high buy-in price & the ridiculous pricing for version upgrades. There have been numerous complaints from long-time users that when a new version is released that they were only offered a 10% discount off retail to upgrade.

That's just a little too rich for my blood as I always like to be running the latest version of any apps I happen to be using. Total Commander's pricing is much more sane by comparison.

Thanks again!

Don't mention it. I enjoy learning new things, but I enjoy teaching what I know even more. TC is a DOS-style command structure connected to a near-Windows 3.1 interface. It's got an almost archaic, eldritch vibe going for it when compared to other file managers, but tweaked out it really soars and tasks can be completed much faster than with other file managers because everything has a keyboard shortcut & you rarely, if ever, have to take your fingers off the home row of keys.

[kartal]

Nowadays my favorite is NDN(use with ConEmu), it is cross platform.

http://ndn.muxe.com/download/
http://code.google.c...m/p/conemu-maximus5/

Under Linux I like Gnome Commander, Midnight Commander and Krusader

[Tuxman]

Looks like a valid replacement for the FAR Manager, thank you for the hint. 

[IL1keT0Donate]

Yesterday I happened to come across PikySuite which says it is an add-on to many explorer programs:

PikyBasket provides innovative ways of copying files in Windows.
PikyFolders lets you jump to your favorite folders very fast.
PikyTools are small utilities designed to boost your productivity.


Note: PikySuite integrates seamlessly with other 3rd party file managers, including Total Commander, Directory Opus, xplorer2, RecentX, XYPlorer, and ExplorerXP.

PikySuite runs on Windows 7, Windows Vista, Windows XP, (Both 32 bit & 64 bit)

This reminds me of a wonderful little program which worked on Win 95 thru to XP but sadly not Vista (or therefore Windows 7) called File-Ex v3.x written by CottonwoodSW dot com which integrated into Windows Explorer and acted in a similar manner to the very useful Dialog Tracker in ExplorerPlus. Both programs would remember the last x number of files/file names or folder locations etc and could be accessed through the save or open windows that the user had previously opened or saved files too.

Q. Does anyone know of any other 3rd party File & Folder trackers that intergrate into File Managers or File Explorers and work with both 32bit & 64bit versions of Windows XP, thru to Windows 7.