Windows 7 Annoyances

Working with Files and Folders

What is Windows Explorer if not a file manager at heart? Sure, the Start menu and taskbar form a homebase of sorts, but the desktop and your folders are basically there to provide access to your data. When it comes to copying, moving, renaming, deleting, and opening files, Explorer is where it’s at. The rest of this chapter includes topics on tweaking Windows’ file management features so you can work with your stuff without getting so annoyed.

The 17 File Context Menu Bug

For years, you’ve been able to select any number of files in Windows Explorer—hundreds or even thousands—and right-click the lot of ’em. Up pops a context menu with actions you can take on all the selected files and folders.

The items that appear in the menu depend on the types of objects you’ve selected: right-click a .jpg image file, and you’ll see a different menu than if you right-clicked a .txt file or a folder. These menus are assembled on the fly by various programs called context menu handlers—discussed at length in Chapter 3—which is why there might be a slight delay before a menu opens, particularly if you selected a lot of files.

But Microsoft made a change for Windows 7 that looks and feels like a bug. Now, when you right-click 17 or more files, each of those context menu handlers only knows about the first 16 of them. The good news is that when you select an item in the menu, the target program gets all the files you selected, not just those 16. But since the handlers don’t ...