Vista Explorer Replacement

andyb · Post by **andyb** » Fri Dec 05, 2008 5:38 am

I hate the Default Windows Explorer that comes with Vista, and it is impossible to put it back to being exactly the same as it was with previous versions of Windows so I have started to look at alternative programs when I have to use Vista on other peoples PC's.

Does anyone have any suggestions of favourites.? Feel free to add comments and suggestions about third party software, please dont try to persuade me that Vista's Explorer program is really good as you will be wasting your breath.

I have had a look around the net and come up with a shortilst, all of which I have tried briefly before making this post. Directory Opus seems to have a huge amount of options and features and a nice layout but mentioned something about "Licence" after I had downloaded and installed the "Free" program - I will look into that a bit later.

a43 also stands out, not because of features or an amazing layout, but because it doesnt need to be installed, which makes it a really easy program to use on customers machines - I did read that there is another program that does this called "XY Explorer", but I didnt get and try that one for some reason

These are the programs in my shortlist having found 35+ in reviews on the net. I have excluded all of the programs that cost money (about half), and then some because they are crap.

a43
Directory Opus
Free Commander
Unreal Commander
Xplorer

Andy

BillyBuerger · Post by **BillyBuerger** » Fri Dec 05, 2008 7:29 am

I agree with you completely! Although my biggest beef with the Vista explorer (and the XP version some too) is that it seems to randomly decide how it thinks you want to view your files. Columns, widths, view (icon, detail, etc)... I could live with it I think if it wasn't for some of this crap.

I've tried out many replacements and haven't found anything yet that I've settled on. Cubic Explorer was the closest I've come to using. But it has some issues of it's own. For one, it seems to lag occasionally. And I also am running 64bit windows XP at work and tools such as 7zip that add additional context menus don't show up. But I just checked the site and the guy's talking about making it open source. That might be fun! I've played around at making my own explorer replacement but never got far. Might be easier to help make this one better.

andyb · Post by **andyb** » Fri Dec 05, 2008 11:31 am

And I also am running 64bit windows XP at work and tools such as 7zip that add additional context menus don't show up.

My test rig that I installed Vista on a few weeks ago, and then tweaked greatly is also a 64-bit version. I like WinRAR and the version I use works perfectly under XP but has no context menu's at all under Vista. I did notice that under at least 2 of the 5 replacement file managers I tried the context menu's worked perfectly - so yet again the problem is with MS's coding and not program incompatability with Vista.

Andy

nick705 · Post by **nick705** » Fri Dec 05, 2008 11:53 am

BillyBuerger wrote:I agree with you completely! Although my biggest beef with the Vista explorer (and the XP version some too) is that it seems to randomly decide how it thinks you want to view your files. Columns, widths, view (icon, detail, etc)... I could live with it I think if it wasn't for some of this crap.

Vista's default folder views are totally spastic, but there are a few registry fixes which make things a bit more tolerable:

Disable Automatic Folder Type Discovery for Templates in Vista

Delete and Reset Windows Vista Folder Views or Folder Types Settings to Default Clean State

Fix Vista Unable or Fail to Remember or Save Folder Types/Views Setting Error by Increasing BagMRU Cache Memory Size

If it weren't for the "Increase BagMRU" tweak in particular, my (blameless) monitor would probably have had a heavy, sharp object thrown through it by now...

sjoukew · Post by **sjoukew** » Sat Dec 06, 2008 6:24 am

I am still happy with Total Commander.

-=neo=- · Post by **-=neo=-** » Sat Dec 06, 2008 9:19 am

so all that random coloumn names and views changing every so often wasnt just me going mad? I too did hunt around for a file browser, but did not find anything great. There is somethat that i did see, part of freenas, some linux web-based file broswer - seemed good - Just waiting for the box to boot and i'll get a name,

ilovejedd · Post by **ilovejedd** » Sat Dec 06, 2008 10:18 am

Been using 2xExplorer since Win98SE and I'm still using it now despite the release of its big brother, xplorerÂ². I'm so used to it and the batch file creation is a God-send.

andyb · Post by **andyb** » Sat Dec 06, 2008 4:30 pm

so all that random coloumn names and views changing every so often wasnt just me going mad? I too did hunt around for a file browser, but did not find anything great. There is somethat that i did see, part of freenas, some linux web-based file broswer - seemed good - Just waiting for the box to boot and i'll get a name,

Dude you should smoke less grass, your typing makes you sound phuqt

Been using 2xExplorer since Win98SE and I'm still using it now despite the release of its big brother, xplorerÂ². I'm so used to it and the batch file creation is a God-send.

Good to know that its durable and has fought the test of time and won, have you tried it under Fista.?

Sometimes I wished I had found something like that and had bucked the trend for 10-years ignoring all of the pointless changes that MS had put in with subsequent OS releases - at least nothing would have changed.

Andy

ilovejedd · Post by **ilovejedd** » Mon Dec 08, 2008 10:26 am

andyb wrote:Good to know that its durable and has fought the test of time and won, have you tried it under Fista.?

Sometimes I wished I had found something like that and had bucked the trend for 10-years ignoring all of the pointless changes that MS had put in with subsequent OS releases - at least nothing would have changed.

Andy

Yep, I use it with my Vista laptop. The "folder" for Control Panel is now kinda useless under Vista, but I can live with that. Lack of unicode support kinda sucks, though, since I've got a bunch of Chinese/Japanese/Korean MP3's.

BillyBuerger · Post by **BillyBuerger** » Mon Dec 08, 2008 4:42 pm

nick705 wrote:Vista's default folder views are totally spastic, but there are a few registry fixes which make things a bit more tolerable...

Thanks, that helps out a lot! Although this still won't stop me from looking for an alternative. Just makes it less of an everyday annoyance.

wim · Post by **wim** » Mon Dec 08, 2008 5:59 pm

I am quite happy with QTTabBar
http://qttabbar.wikidot.com/