Software for file management Total Commander

A sendup of another software tool that has improved my life. In this case it is a fee based software, available very reasonably. It is called Total Commander. The reason for this unapologetic name is that it used to be called Windows Commander, and Microsoft pursuaded the author to change the name. So it became Total Commander, and it REALLY puts you in control of your own hard disk drive. Among its virtues it counts stability beyond almost any needed measure. It is a double pane file manager system that facilitates drag and drop from one side to the other, such that the end user can be "in" two directories at all times, rather than copy and paste in Windows Explorer. With the use of the shift key or hotkeys, you can choose between copy and move functions every time. Progress bars are very accurate. By configuration one may modify the panel to display every disk on the system (including flash disks) by buttons. A ^T tabbed feature like Mozilla Firefox makes additional combinations literally simple, where windows explorer would be slow in the extreme. There is a search feature that allows the end user to search any given directory or directory tree for filenames, and text found within a given file. The text can be searched various ways, including but not limited to ascii and unicode (for .doc files as an example.) This is excellent when used correctly, exeeding google desktop search in specific targeting. I now have over 300,000 files on my hard disk drive, and desktop search tends to bring up "too much stuff." The Total Commander program has a free test downloadable with a small nag if you choose not to register. If you pay, you get a personalized registration file and free updates so far. It supports several zip features, and treats zipped files as directories such that you can view all filenames in a zipped compilation without unzipping. You can even search a zipped compilation IF you want to throw in the processor time. Likewise you can delete zipped files from a compilation without un-zipping and re-zipping. My most common use of Total Commander is at startup, in place of Windows Explorer. It makes backups a breeze, by facilitating a customizable comparison of files and directories, so backup days are when I think my most grateful thoughts of the author. An FTP feature that makes an online drive virtually local is almost an afterthought. I Love Total Commander, and credit my brother with improving my life by introducing me to it.