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Question

Marking files as "complete" and appending to file names

Mar 22, 2015 3:39PM PDT

Hello, I have two questions.
1. My first question is how to mark individual items in this folder as "complete" for the purpose of sorting using the last column on the right.

Image here

This may be related: My windows is not letting me edit the details pane when I right click files and go to property>details. How can I fix this?

2. My second question is whether I can append a common suffix or prefix to multiple file names all at once. For instance, append the same prefix to the start of each file name (while keeping the rest of the file name intact), or append a suffix to the end of each file name (while keeping the rest of the file name intact).

I want the file names to all remain different, but each end/begin with the same word or letter.
Thank you.

Discussion is locked

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Answer
You may wish to find a primer on file names and more.
Mar 22, 2015 4:15PM PDT

Windows for decades used the file extension as a hint of the file type. If you change that, the association to the matching app is lost. This differs on say, Apple's File System.

So no, you can't change the last .pdf without losing what app it opens with.

At the same time the NTFS (what that is, is on the web) does not supply a "completed" file attribute so that column is non-standard. Your app or extension will define what that column does.

So for now, until you catch up on file names, just leave the file extension alone and rename the file as you see fit.
Bob

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Re: File names
Mar 23, 2015 4:13AM PDT

I wish to append prefixes and suffixes en masse to file names only, not file extensions.

The "completed" attribute was one out of a very long list of columns windows allowed me to display or hide. If they are unusable, why does windows provide them?

But those nonstandard options aside, I could still work around this by editing "standard" options through the details pane..except I can't. Windows will let me view but not edit the details pane as I described in the OP. Help?

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En mass.
Mar 23, 2015 5:18AM PDT

There are hundreds of file renamers that can do that en mass. I'll consider that solved.

As to why Microsoft supplied a column is something you can ask them. My bet is some app supports that but we don't know what you have on your PC.

I'm left to guess you haven't read up on the NTFS (file system.) Here's the native file attributes:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NTFS#Attribute_lists.2C_attributes.2C_and_streams

But here's why no apps support this to very few. The moment this file is copied to say a common memory stick in say FAT32 those extended attributes are lost. So for now, few apps will bother with this extended NTFS attributes.

Since it's not in the basic NTFS attributes your apps and who wrote those apps will have to tell you more.
Bob

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Re:
Mar 23, 2015 8:44AM PDT

Oh, didn't realize there was software for renaming. That was simpler than I thought it would be. Thanks.

For the details pane issue, this is what what I mean

Image 1
I right click those columns, go to More..., and it has hundreds of details to choose from. If I can't use "Complete," I don't mind using a standard one like "Tags," except...

Image 2
I can't edit these details. I vaguely remember being able to before, perhaps it was a different computer. I tried changing tags by opening the document and going through save as... but that didn't let me either. Any ideas?

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Re: tags
Mar 23, 2015 9:33AM PDT

To change data shown by explorer for a mp3-file you need a mp3-tag- editor (or more, to change it from 128 to 96 kbps you need to re-encode it). To change data shown by explorer for a picture you need a picture editor.
So to change data shown by explorer for your (until now) unknown file types, you need an xxx editor. But what is xxx ?

Kees

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Kees nailed it.
Mar 23, 2015 9:57AM PDT