Renaming Files Suggestion

Hi All,

I have just spent a lot of time renaming a hundred or so files by adding 01, 02, etc to the beginning of the name. Of course I required the files to be in a particular order.

An excellent way to overcome this time consuming and mundane task within Vista would be if you could enter a renaming mode which learns the new naming format or you manually enter the format and then continues this automatically as you select each file. If you wished to rename a mass of files in no particular order then this should also be provided.

I hope that someone within Microsoft would read this and add it into the final release of Vista

Regards

Togora

Why not just do it with a batch file? It's far more appropriate to the task, much more flexible and won't involve confusing 99% of users for a feature less than 1% would ever use.

Hi AndyC

Not a user of batch files, because I'm not as bright as you all, would this be possible for files which have random names that have to be in a set order? Surely there are too many variables to consider and an automated system would be a better method for such a task?

Regards

Togora

Togora wrote:



Hi AndyC

Not a user of batch files, because I'm not as bright as you all, would this be possible for files which have random names that have to be in a set order? Surely there are too many variables to consider and an automated system would be a better method for such a task?

Regards

Togora

Write a WSC to do it, it seems to me like it would be a trivial task.

1) Select Files in explorer shell from wscript
2) script add's them to a dictionary in the order you specify
3) script iterates the dictionary renaming the files chronologically.

Togora wrote:

I hope that someone within Microsoft would read this and add it into the final release of Vista

There is no time anymore to add anything to Vista.

That said, there are plenty of 3rd party utilities that you can use for that. I remember my wife using ACDsee for that purpose...

Total Commander (no flames again about the UI:)) has an excellent multi-rename function.

I use it for renaming jpg's when I want to join pictures of multiple camera's. So when you use "[YMD]-[hms]-[N]-Camera" and you remembered to synchronize the date and time on the camera's and read the memory cards with a reader, you will get a folder with pictures in chronological order on both file date and name.

Peter

You ever selected a bunch of files in XP, then right clicked and selected Rename?  It sequentially adds numbers in parenthesis AND keeps the extension if you have multiple file types selected.

I imagine the same will be true in Vista.

Larsenal wrote:

You ever selected a bunch of files in XP, then right clicked and selected Rename?  It sequentially adds numbers in parenthesis AND keeps the extension if you have multiple file types selected.

I imagine the same will be true in Vista.

Yes, and pretty much nobody knows about that trick