Folder Actions? to install filelisting?

[VernyAcula50]

Dont understand where in Win 7 folders, Tools ... File Types, Actions are carried out. I need to install 'filelisting'. Where can I set up Folder Actions?

 

[TrainableMan]

If I understand correctly you want the ability to add an extra function like you could in Windows XP. There was the OPEN action and the PLAY action and you could add your own.

But Windows Explorer has changed and this isn't really applicable. If you have a program called "FileListing" then you could associate it to a particular file extension but there can only be one program associated at a time that is the default option (Control Panel\All Control Panel Items\Default Programs\Set Associations).

If the system knows that "FileListing" can process a specific file type then when you right-click on that file type in windows explorer and choose "open with" then that program is offered as an option. So I believe you would have to create a script to associate your program "filelisting" to the extensions it supports and then run it from the context menu.

Basically I think they did away with the option as most people didn't know how to use it anyway and now it would most likely need to be done with a VBS script or two. First to associate the program to the specific file extensions. And then if the "open with" is not easy enough you may want to create a context menu for those file types as well. I'm sure this can all be done because I know programs that do it when installed but I don't know how. You might try the Microsoft Tech Forums.

What does this FileListing program do? What is it you need, really? Maybe it can be done a different way.

 

[VernyAcula50]

Folder Action to install 'filelisting'

Thanks for the reply: I'm stuck, as I used filelisting extensively in XP - grateful cos on a Mac these things used to be easy. filelisting is a tiny code published by theeldergeek.com, for XP.

 

[TrainableMan]

OK I found what you are talking about HERE. Quite simply it runs a batch "Dir"ectory command on the current folder and sends the output to a text file.

This can be done easily as a "Send To" option but you will need to modify the FileListing.BAT file slightly.

Their example:
dir /a /-p /o:gen >filelisting.txt

My modification. Use this for FileListing.BAT:
dir %1 /a /-p /o:gen >%TEMP%\filelisting.txt

NOTE: In their example they store FileListing.BAT in c:\windows and that is fine if you can access that location but it may be protected depending on your system permissions, so if you can't get to C:\windows it will also work in the root C:\


Now you need to add it to the "Send To" Menu. This is a protected location so to get to it you need to use an environment variable. Paste this into Windows Explorer's path (upper left of the window) and hit enter:
%APPDATA%\Microsoft\Windows\SendTo
Then right-click in an empty spot in the right window pane and choose New > Shortcut
Then hit Browse to locate and select your FileListing.Bat file and then hit OK and Next. In the next window give it a name; you will see this so it should be descriptive (from their example they suggest Create File Listing) and then hit Finish.

You should now have a functioning script and a shortcut to it which looks like:



One final item. The original batch file would store the output to the same directory as the FileListing.BAT file which was C:\Windows but this folder, as I mentioned before, may be protected depending on the users permissions (plus it goes against recommended coding practices for Vista/W7 data) so instead I have it going to the users temporary folder. To access this folder simply enter:
%TEMP%
into Windows Explorer (just as you did for Send To above) and you will find the FileListing.TXT in that folder.

After you have run the BAT file once you can even create a desktop shortcut to this results file. Simply right-click on a blank spot on the desktop and select New > Shortcut but this time type in %temp%\filelisting.txt and hit Next then give it a name such as File Listing Results and hit Finish.