Windows 8 Promises Better File Copy Experience

One task Windows traditionally hasn’t handled so well is copying very large files, or very large numbers of files. Many Lifehacker readers use Windows Explorer alternatives to avoid those issues, but Windows 8 looks like it will make the process a little simpler.

A post on the Windows 8 blog details how file management dialogs are being improved and streamlined in the forthcoming release (which still doesn’t have an official launch date, before you ask). The two things I particularly like are the creation of a unified file copy dialogue, which shows all active file jobs and includes the ability to pause and resume individual copying tasks. This also offers more information about what’s being copied, which helps make up for the generally inaccurate time estimates Windows offers:

The other useful improvement is a change to the file conflict dialog which pops up if you try to copy a file into a directory where a file of the same name already exists. The new dialog keeps source files on the right and destination files on the left, which is a major improvement:

Hit the full post for more details of what’s changing. One interesting scrap of information: just 0.45% of users use an alternative file copy manager, based on Microsoft’s own automatically-collected data. We definitely welcome improvements to the standard experience, but we still recommend using one of the products in our Hive Five of alternative file copiers if you’re regularly moving large files around.

Improving our file management basics: copy, move, rename, and delete [Building Windows 8]


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