|
02 Feb 12 - 11:56 AM (#3300910) Subject: Tech: Windows is a Dalek plot. From: Bert You go to the trouble of setting up and organizing folders and Windows decides that it is going to put your files elsewhere. You set up an account with administrator privileges and Windows ignores that and says that you must have administrator privileges to do what you want to do. Also you place your files in a folder in the order that you want them, f'rinstance a play list. BUT OH NO!!! You can't do that because Windows mandates the your files MUST BE in alphabetical order. YOU WILL OBEY! YOU WILL OBEY! YOU WILL OBEY! |
|
02 Feb 12 - 12:02 PM (#3300914) Subject: RE: Tech: Windows is a Dalek plot. From: GUEST,999 Fool 'em and type in code. |
|
02 Feb 12 - 12:06 PM (#3300919) Subject: RE: Tech: Windows is a Dalek plot. From: Bert And how do I stop it from docking my windows to full screen when I move them near the top? |
|
02 Feb 12 - 12:07 PM (#3300920) Subject: RE: Tech: Windows is a Dalek plot. From: frogprince YOU WILL buy the next Windows version to be released in a few months, whether or not it will support your perfectly good flat scanner, film scanner, or high quality 13 1/2 inch printer.... |
|
02 Feb 12 - 12:42 PM (#3300942) Subject: RE: Tech: Windows is a Dalek plot. From: gnomad Dunno if this applies to all windows systems, but in the Vista (spits) system I am on you can add 'Tags' to a file, and by clicking the top line of the folder arrange them in tag order if you so wish. Clicking Type, Size, and Date Modified headings can sort by those orders also. If Tags isn't shown a right-click on the top line will offer some choices. Clicking back on the title column puts everything back to alphabetical (and toggles reverse if required). Tags themselves are added to an individual file through >right click >Properties >Details >Tags then mouse-down and click then type, OK to confirm. I agree, there must be a better way to organise it, but it will at least work. Wouldn't want to have a lot to arrange this way. |
|
02 Feb 12 - 12:55 PM (#3300952) Subject: RE: Tech: Windows is a Dalek plot. From: Bonzo3legs I'm very happy with Windows 7 - it does exactly what I tell it to. |
|
02 Feb 12 - 12:56 PM (#3300954) Subject: RE: Tech: Windows is a Dalek plot. From: Bonzo3legs or it does exactly what I tell it!! |
|
02 Feb 12 - 01:10 PM (#3300962) Subject: RE: Tech: Windows is a Dalek plot. From: Newport Boy The order in which files appear when you view a folder in Explorer is quite independent of where the files are actually placed on a disk, and in the case of mp3 files it may also be different from the order they appear in a player application. (I don't know about Windows default player - I don't use it.) As for docking windows, there should be an option in system settings somewhere. I've not come across this in Windows (I rarely use XP these days). JiK wil probably know. Phil |
|
02 Feb 12 - 02:26 PM (#3301012) Subject: RE: Tech: Windows is a Dalek plot. From: JohnInKansas As to the opening post: Windows may try to "catalog" your files by putting them in ridiculous places, but all the places where it puts them generally are in folders directly under your username in the "real" tree. If you make a folder directly in C:\ and put files there, it shouldn't move anything out of the folder, although it may put duplicates or shortcuts in the "My Pretty Shit" folders. Much of the "rearranging" you may be seeing is not specifically a Windows thing. Quite a few programs you may have installed may also include "cataloging" (most "web storage programs" do their own versions of this, and many newer image editors do it). I just avoid such programs. Windows givees you lots of choices about the order in which files are listed in Win Explorer, although not all of them are particularly helpful. As already mentioned, if you click on one of the columns on the top bar, the list will be sorted by whatever that column is displaying, and the list reverses the order each time you click. If you right-click anywhere on the top bar, and click "More," you get a list of different column headers you can display. Put a check mark in the box to display one, and remove the check to hide it. Since Vista, there are about 128 different choices. I don't know whether a WinXP update may have added more than I remember were there - or maybe I just didn't bother to look for whether there were more available back then(?). In the "More" list, the ones checked are displayed at the top of the list, if you close and reopen that view. You can click on one and move it up or down in the list of the ones displayed. (one you've selected moves "one place" up or down for each click on the up/down, so it's a l..o..n..g hike to bring one from the bottom of the list all the way up if you don't do the close/open to jump it into the top of the list.) Only a few of the column headers have "editable" properties, but as mentioned you can add/remove "tags" to change the list order if you display a tags column. I use the simpler expedient of nearly always including a date (yymmdd or simillar) at the front of file names, and/or for special purposes starting the filename with a short number so that the "special" files for a particular use will appear in the order I want. A "!" at the beginning of the file name moves the file to the top of the list, and a "z" puts it at the bottom, if I want to move one temporarily for a particular use, but that "system" has worked since DOS 3 days so it's well enough known. Some "rented" music files may not tolerate filename editing though. I afraid I don't recognize the "docking" feature described. It's probably one those (many) "features" I knew immediately would be annoying and blocked in my initial setups. In recent Windows, even if you log on as "Administrator" most things you do actually are run in a less privileged mode, so Windows will still ask for "permission" any time something actually requires "Administrator" authority. I haven't found anything you can do about that without going deep into somewhat arcane security settings and it hasn't seemed worthwhile to me to investigate what can be done. John |
|
02 Feb 12 - 02:44 PM (#3301019) Subject: RE: Tech: Windows is a Dalek plot. From: Bert gnomad I tried Tags themselves are added to an individual file through >right click >Properties >Details > but am not getting a tags option. Although it did let me show the tags column. It also lets me show an importance column but won't let me set that either. |
|
02 Feb 12 - 02:54 PM (#3301025) Subject: RE: Tech: Windows is a Dalek plot. From: John MacKenzie Exasperate!!!, Exasperate !!!! Exasperate !!!!! |
|
02 Feb 12 - 04:42 PM (#3301126) Subject: RE: Tech: Windows is a Dalek plot. From: Newport Boy I saw Vista on a few computers and decided it was not for me. The easy choice was to leave Windows, and I've not regretted it. Phil |
|
02 Feb 12 - 05:29 PM (#3301156) Subject: RE: Tech: Windows is a Dalek plot. From: gnomad I confess Bert, I didn't try it on music files before posting, only on text and picture files. However, I've just tried it on audio files, and there it is, so I am at a loss. Maybe it varies between the differing flavours of Windows (Vista home here). On the details pane I get a pane of info about the particular track, Tags is right below the star rating (which being an icon stands out among the text) bringing the mouse down the pane highlights each bit of info in turn, and a click lets me enter things. I have just discovered there is also a comments box, which I can work the same way, do you perhaps have that available? An alternative: If you are using WMP for a player, the box to which you can drag titles on the 'Now Playing' or the 'Library' panes has an option for saving playlists - click the down arrow beside 'Untitled Playlist', >save as, then choose a name & location. To play the list just double-click it. I understand that most players have a similar option, but I can't offer pointers. Of course this isn't the same as actually placing the tracks in a specific folder, but it does enable you to play them in the order you have selected. One battle at a time eh? |
|
02 Feb 12 - 06:18 PM (#3301188) Subject: RE: Tech: Windows is a Dalek plot. From: ripov Full screen docking -look up "snap" in help (it's actually helpful about this!) and go to "turn snap on and off". Anything on the "C:" drive can get trashed if windows needs reinstalling or crashes badly (assuming that's where windows lives. Keep important stuff on a seperate partition or drive. If you go to <%username%>my documents>, right click, go to "properties" and open the "location" tab, you can refer to a whole drive as your documents folder and windows should remember this! |
|
02 Feb 12 - 07:18 PM (#3301221) Subject: RE: Tech: Windows is a Dalek plot. From: Bert I'm talking about text files of lyrics and I'm on Windows 7. I spent about an hour with HP's chat support and they led me to a patch, but that didn't work either. I don't keep files in 'my documents' because it isn't in my own directory hierarchy. Another case of Windows deciding that they know better than I do where I want my files and what directory they should be in. Thanks for your help everyone. I'll keep pegging away at it. |
|
02 Feb 12 - 10:52 PM (#3301278) Subject: RE: Tech: Windows is a Dalek plot. From: EBarnacle I dunno. I ha ve had nothing but pleasure with Windows 7. Both versions that I have operate quickly and cleanly. Any errors in typing are due to my clumsiness. |
|
02 Feb 12 - 11:13 PM (#3301282) Subject: RE: Tech: Windows is a Dalek plot. From: JohnInKansas Actually, the "My cuter'n shit" folders can be anywhere, since all that's required is that the folder is named in the folder or root location where it's defined, and the "folder header" contains a pointer to where the files/folders it could contain actually are located. The "My documents" et.al that show at the top of the pseudo tree in Windows explorer is a "synthesised" construction that can contain actual files, "file images," shortcuts, or a few other synthetic representations arranged in a way that Microsoft (incorrectly) believes is "logical." Formally, the "My cuteness" folders are all located at C:\Users\<username>\"let's be cute" folders in the "real"(?) drive structure (if you happen to be under the bizarre misimpression that there's anything real about any of it). Unfortunately, if there are multiple users on the computer, the name of your My Documents folder will necessarily be something different if another user is logged on, since their My Documents will be "My Documents," and theirs will be changed if you're the one logged on, all of which I find somewhat rude. (Sort of like finding a friend out on the town using an assumed name 'cause (s)he's with a "different friend" that night?) ... But then I'm probably just easily confused. John |
|
03 Feb 12 - 04:02 AM (#3301343) Subject: RE: Tech: Windows is a Dalek plot. From: Newport Boy Bert - With text files, the only way you can get Explorer to display them in a particular order which you define is to create some property of the file which will sort in that order. By far the easiest way to do this is in the filename, say by adding a sequence number to start the filename. Of course, this won't work if you might use the same file in a different playlist. In fact, I can't think of any way to achieve that, short of building a complex coding into the file properties, and even that could not meet all circumstances. As far as I know, no file manager can display files in an arbitrary order chosen by the user. And just to reinforce what I said earlier, you can't 'place your files in a folder in the order that you want them' as you said in your original post. The storage medium characteristics, the filesystem and the operating system between them determine where the files go, and the concept of 'order' or 'sequence' has no meaning in file storage these days. What you want is a defined display sequence for files which are randomly placed, and I don't know of any application which will do that for general files. Music player software deals with playlists by creating an index to the individual files. It would be possible to do this for lyric files by creating the playlist in Word or similar and indexing the individual files to it, but it would be a clumsy system. Phil |
|
03 Feb 12 - 03:58 PM (#3301650) Subject: RE: Tech: Windows is a Dalek plot. From: Tootler I saw Vista on a few computers and decided it was not for me. The easy choice was to leave Windows, and I've not regretted it. Same here. Reinforced by a chronically arthritic WinXP. I battled with the vagaries of Vista on my wife's computer for two years before I finally succeeded in persuading her to let me install Linux. I don't know whether she likes it any better and there are pros and cons in both from an average user's viewpoint. However, it makes it a lot easier for me to maintain her computer. The point made by Newport Boy above is a good one. I now tend to use JiK's method of adding a numeric date to the beginning of filenames and have reorganised several of my folders to in this way. I also use either date or alphabetic sub-folders with very large folders. My song and tune files are mostly alphabetic and my audio, video and picture files are mostly now in date order. |