Windows only: Attribute Changer, a free right-click utility, gives you total control over everything reported by a file to your system. Right-click one or many files and choose “Change Attributes,” and you can enable or disable read-only status, hiding, indexing, and even NTFS compression. You can change the file’s date of creation, modification and last access, and tweak a photo’s time of taking. Great for those files that get erroneously labelled as made on Jan. 1, 1969, and always get lost in searches, or fixing date issues with a photo collection. Attribute Changer is a free download for Windows systems only. Attribute Changer [Romain Petges via gHacks]
Windows only: If you’ve got a shortcut on your desktop and—rather than opening the file it’s pointing to—you want to find the actual file on your hard drive, Windows Vista has a handy Open file location entry in its context menu. The OpenTarget shell extension brings the same functionality to XP, adding an entry to your context menu when you right-click a shortcut to Open Target Folder. Clicking it takes you directly to the folder containing the file. This handy little extension may not be for everyone, but if you spend much time chasing down shortcuts, it’s a nice tool to bring XP up to speed with Vista. Add Open Target Folder Option To Windows Explorer Context Menu [via FreewareGenius]
Windows only: Free Windows utility Folder Guide adds user-defined folders to your right-click menu for quick, easy access to any number of favourite folders. Once you add a folder, Folder Guide makes it a very simple affair to navigate to that commonly used folder in just two clicks. Explorer’s Favourites menu already uses the same basic concept, but it’s not as readily available as the right-click menu and it also integrates with Internet Explorer, which means any of those bookmarks clutter your folder shortcuts. If you like the quick access idea behind Folder Guide but don’t like the execution, check out previously mentioned Direct Folders or previously mentioned Finder Style to put your favourites in the sidebar.
Folder Guide [via gHacks]Windows only: Windows Explorer alternative UltraExplorer offers dual pane and tabbed browsing, plus a handy “Drop Stack” staging area where you can drag files to temporarily park them, for easy batch operations. Command line lovers will like the Command Line box at the bottom of the UltraExplorer window; you can even set the command prompt to stay synced to whatever folder you are browsing. You can make UltraExplorer portable after its initial installation, too—copy the files from the /APPS/ directory in the installation folder to your USB drive to do so. For other file management options check out our Five Best Alternative File Managers. UltraExplorer is a free download for Windows only.
Windows only: Free Explorer add-on QTAddressBar clones the functionality of Vista’s new address bar in Windows XP. For folks unfamiliar with the new Vista address bar, it provides a clickable breadcrumb trail of every folder leading to your current location. Clicking one of your folders will take you directly to it, and clicking the down arrow provides a drop-down for moving to any folder within that one. Brought to you by the same folks who made previously mentioned QTTabBar, this freeware Explorer add-on looks like another nice stopgap between Vista and XP. While you’re at it, check out more ways you can power up Windows Explorer with free add-ons.
QTAddressBar [via Download Squad]Windows only: Alpha file manager Explorer++ is a promising free alternative to Windows Explorer that offers features it sorely lacks, like tabbed browsing, secure file deletion, file merging and splitting, instant command line access, and keyboard shortcuts. Explorer++ is still in alpha and may not be ready for full-time use the way Xplorer 2 is, but it’s still a simple, functional, and free app worth keeping an eye on. If you’re sick of Windows Explorer’s paucity of features, shareware TotalCommander is our readers’ pick for best alternative file manager; you can also power up Windows Explorer itself with free add-ons. Explorer++ is a free download for Windows only.
Explorer++ [via gHacks]Windows only: While Windows Explorer can sort files by type, by default it doesn’t display or sort files by extension in a separate column—but the Extension Column add-on does just that. Install this small utility to add a column to Explorer’s Details view that lists the file extension (TXT) versus the default file type (Text document). A tiny but useful thing. Here are some more useful free Explorer add-ons. The Extension Column is a free download for Windows only. Extension Column [XRayz Software via gHacks]
Windows only: Free application StExBar adds a toolbar full of useful shortcuts and commands to Windows Explorer. Even better, the add-on binds keyboard shortcuts with virtually every action it adds, so you can create a new folder by hitting Ctrl-Shift-N, open a command prompt in the current folder by pressing Ctrl-M, or copy a full file path with Ctrl-Shift-C. We just highlighted several free tools to power up Windows Explorer, but StExBar is a new offering you might want to add to your list. StExBar is freeware, Windows only. StExBar [via Download Squad]
Windows only: Free Windows utility PlacesBar Tweaker puts your frequently-accessed folders in Windows’ Open and Save dialog box’s sidebar. If the Desktop, My Documents, and My Computer (the default folder locations in the Places Bar) aren’t the folders you most want to fetch and put files, the PlacesBar Tweaker is for you. This small utility lets you add custom folders to the Places bar and reorder them for quick and easy access. Windows XP’s TweakUI utility can achieve the same end (among several other adjustments), but if you don’t need everything TweakUI offers, the PlacesBar Tweaker is a slimmer option. (Don’t forget previously mentioned OpenWide can also save the file listing view type in open dialog boxes as well.) The PlacesBar Tweaker is a free download for Windows only.
PlacesBar Tweaker [ioIsland.com via gHacks]Windows only: Free application AccelMan is a dual-pane Windows Explorer replacement with a powerful feature set. Previously a shareware application, AccelMan boasts a built-in image viewer, tabbed views, command line integration, a media player, text editor, and even file compression and extraction with support for 15 popular formats (including ZIP and RAR). It also does as-you-type search, reads PDF and Microsoft Office documents, and tons more. We’ve shown you how to replace Explorer with Xplorer2, but if you’re looking for an Explorer alternative and Xplorer2 wasn’t you’re thing, AccelMan is worth a look. AccelMan is freeware, Windows only.
AccelMan File Manager [via FreewareGenius]
