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+--- Thread: If I could ask for one feature in Windows 9x... (/showthread.php?tid=3810)
If I could ask for one feature in Windows 9x... - A Black Falcon - 1st June 2006
It would be the ability to sort folders by the total size of their contents. It's really annoying that you have to right-click on each folder and check the Properties screen... and when you have dozens of folders you want to compare the sizes of... yeah, it's not pretty.
If I could ask for one feature in Windows 9x... - Great Rumbler - 1st June 2006
I can't think of any situation where I would need such a feature.
If I could ask for one feature in Windows 9x... - A Black Falcon - 1st June 2006
... you don't have folders on your hard drive you ever want to manage? You don't install programs and never say "Okay I want to delete something but it should be something larger to make the space saved actually worth it"? Umm... that's hard to believe...
It is more acute for times like when I've got a folder with 176 game demos in it (averaging a size of 75MB each - 10GB total) and want to free up some space but would like to see if any of them are larger, like three digit size at least, so fewer things must be deleted to free up the space, but it's a feature I have wished for many times over the years for many different reasons.
If I could ask for one feature in Windows 9x... - Dark Jaguar - 1st June 2006
I myself just use the windows uninstall feature most of the time as it shows how much space a given application takes up. Plus it has the benefit of also purging registry entries. Only issue is "unclean" uninstall programs...
However remember ABF, MS has completely abandoned the 9x line. Unless you take things into your own hands regarding the OS, you aren't getting any updates. I would suggest the myriad of groups developing updated versions that attempt to replicate the nature of the 9x line (not emulators so much as copiers, like the alternate versions of DOS out there). I myself am interested in trying them out just to see if they do a better job than Windows 98SE or dosBOX in playing my old games. Once I get something that does the trick I'll hang onto it.
If I could ask for one feature in Windows 9x... - A Black Falcon - 1st June 2006
Windows Uninstall is just a list of all the programs installed, and when you tell them to uninstall it just calls their own uninstallers... it's not actually some alternate route of uninstalling programs... I don't use it. The list is full of stuff I uninstalled long ago (because often programs do not remove themselves from the list), it does not cover games that don't use uninstallers (or installers) and you just unzip into folders or simply stream from the internet (mostly demos, but more games than you may think do this... some MMOs for instance.), and it includes EVERYTHING while all I want is to look at the programs or files in one part of my computer -- the Demos folder, the games installed to the root directory of a harddrive, the game trailers folder, etc.
If I could ask for one feature in Windows 9x... - Great Rumbler - 1st June 2006
Quote:It is more acute for times like when I've got a folder with 176 game demos in it (averaging a size of 75MB each - 10GB total) and want to free up some space but would like to see if any of them are larger, like three digit size at least, so fewer things must be deleted to free up the space, but it's a feature I have wished for many times over the years for many different reasons.
WindowsXP already lets you sort individual files by size, just not folders.
Quote:... you don't have folders on your hard drive you ever want to manage? You don't install programs and never say "Okay I want to delete something but it should be something larger to make the space saved actually worth it"? Umm... that's hard to believe...
What DJ said.
If I could ask for one feature in Windows 9x... - Dark Jaguar - 1st June 2006
I'd suggest a few extra tools if you need to remove dead links from the uninstall list. I THINK Tweakui lets you do it, but there are better tweaking tools out there.
If you have a number of things that don't even add themselves to that list, then the only way to go is to just take them out the old fasioned way. But, I clean house of all my old demos on a regular basis anyway. Once I've demoed a game to my satisfaction, the demo is deleted. I have no further use for it. If you have a lot of MP3s, store them in one MASSIVE folder without even caring to properly rename the stuff you ripped off CDs so it's all just "disktrack01" and such. That's what I do.
If I could ask for one feature in Windows 9x... - A Black Falcon - 1st June 2006
See my last post.
If I could ask for one feature in Windows 9x... - The Former DMiller - 1st June 2006
*cough*
![[Image: foldersort.png]](http://www.derekmiller.us/foldersort.png)
If I could ask for one feature in Windows 9x... - Dark Jaguar - 1st June 2006
Yay! DMiller has directly stated that OSX can play all your old DOS and Windows games ABF! This is great news!
If I could ask for one feature in Windows 9x... - The Former DMiller - 1st June 2006
Well, I sort of skipped over all of the posts after ABFs original so I missed out on the DOS conversion. There is a version of DOSBox for OS X, though, so I can play as many old DOS games as you guys can.
If I could ask for one feature in Windows 9x... - A Black Falcon - 1st June 2006
Quote:*cough*
Now that's one feature Windows actually COULD use from Macs... why copy a bunch of useless or stupid stuff like a prettier interface and more Maclike design (which I don't want in Windows!) but not actual useful stuff like this...
I bet Linux has it too. It's too useful a feature to leave out... :)
Quote:Well, I sort of skipped over all of the posts after ABFs original so I missed out on the DOS conversion. There is a version of DOSBox for OS X, though, so I can play as many old DOS games as you guys can.
Not quite true, there are some DOS games that either run horribly in DOSBox or don't run at all, while on this computer I can run any DOS game natively that doesn't have speed issues... and many of those can be fixed with MoSlo (not all, some REALLY old ones still don't work even at 1% speed, but most.). :)
... but that's the one main advantage of having a true DOS-based OS over NT-core systems. I mean, it's not that Windows doesn't have the feature -- it's just only in the Properties dialog box, not on the Windows Explorer view. Which is really annoying, as I said. :)
Quote:I'd suggest a few extra tools if you need to remove dead links from the uninstall list. I THINK Tweakui lets you do it, but there are better tweaking tools out there.
You're right, TweakUI does (and I have it), but why go through that hassle when it's easier to just use the program's uninstall link?
Quote:If you have a lot of MP3s, store them in one MASSIVE folder without even caring to properly rename the stuff you ripped off CDs so it's all just "disktrack01" and such. That's what I do.
I've seen such folders, they are scary... every one goes in its own subfolder (folders for categories like 'downloaded game soundtracks', 'ripped PSX soundtracks', 'pc game soundtracks copied off the cd', etc, with subfolders for each game. The playlist files, though, go in each main category folder, so I don't have to open the subfolders to get to the playlists, just the main category folders.) ! It's the only way to keep anything organized! One giant list... ack... even if it IS in some kind or order (with extremely detailed ID3 tags or something), it'd be so big that it'd be impossible to deal with!
Oh yes, and is it really so wrong to have several hundred demos installed on your system all at once? So I've never played a third of them and haven't played most of the rest in years... so? :D
If I could ask for one feature in Windows 9x... - Dark Jaguar - 1st June 2006
It's not wrong, but if you are running into issues where you need to decide what to manually delete from your hard disk based on the space each demo takes up, it could prove awkward.
By the way ABF, have you tried searching for alternatives to Windows Explorer? I believe there are a few programs out there, though for my part I've never really needed any extra features aside from the basics.
If I could ask for one feature in Windows 9x... - A Black Falcon - 1st June 2006
It does not make things easier that Windows Explorer, at least in ME, is unstable and crashes regularly (the window, not the whole computer) when you right click on the screen to open said properties menu... :D
Yeah, I looked at alternitives a few times, but never really started using one... Windows Explorer is just so easy to use (just open Internet Explorer or My Computer and there you are)...
If I could ask for one feature in Windows 9x... - Dark Jaguar - 1st June 2006
I prefer using the windows explorer launch icon because it automatically opens all the panes I want for file management.
If I could ask for one feature in Windows 9x... - Great Rumbler - 2nd June 2006
Quote:One giant list... ack... even if it IS in some kind or order (with extremely detailed ID3 tags or something), it'd be so big that it'd be impossible to deal with!
I have over 5,000 songs on my playlist. It's not that hard at all to remember what songs you have. That aside, I generally start at the top of my playlist and slowly work my way through all the songs over the course of a few months or so. And if I want a certain song or set of songs, I just scroll through the list until I find them, instead of having to dig through a mountain of folders.
Quote:It does not make things easier that Windows Explorer, at least in ME, is unstable and crashes regularly (the window, not the whole computer) when you right click on the screen to open said properties menu...
This RARELY, if at all, happens with Windows XP.
If I could ask for one feature in Windows 9x... - A Black Falcon - 2nd June 2006
Quote:I have over 5,000 songs on my playlist. It's not that hard at all to remember what songs you have. That aside, I generally start at the top of my playlist and slowly work my way through all the songs over the course of a few months or so. And if I want a certain song or set of songs, I just scroll through the list until I find them, instead of having to dig through a mountain of folders.
I'd say that the opposite way is the easier one... :) (that is not one giant list, but a simple folder tree)
Quote:This RARELY, if at all, happens with Windows XP.
It happened in 95 and 98 too, if perhaps not quite as often as it does in Me...
Quote:I prefer using the windows explorer launch icon because it automatically opens all the panes I want for file management.
Oh, you mean the thing with the sidebar and stuff? I just use the default My Computer look (which you also get from entering it via IE), not the explorer with the sidebar...
If I could ask for one feature in Windows 9x... - Dark Jaguar - 2nd June 2006
I much prefer a side bar. When it's time to manage files, I want to be able to do things to multiple folders at once. If I'm really messing around, I'll open up a couple instances of the thing and stack them, like the olden days of the Windows 3.x file manager.
If I could ask for one feature in Windows 9x... - Great Rumbler - 2nd June 2006
Quote:I'd say that the opposite way is the easier one... (that is not one giant list, but a simple folder tree)
I know what soundtracks I have. I don't want to dig through a bunch of folders to get to them. All I have to do is scroll through one alphabetized playlist to find the songs I want.
If I could ask for one feature in Windows 9x... - A Black Falcon - 2nd June 2006
Quote:I much prefer a side bar. When it's time to manage files, I want to be able to do things to multiple folders at once. If I'm really messing around, I'll open up a couple instances of the thing and stack them, like the olden days of the Windows 3.x file manager.
That's exactly what I do, just open several instances and drag and drop the files from one to the other. :) (it displays the full address in the address bar so you can tell where each one is...)
Quote:I know what soundtracks I have. I don't want to dig through a bunch of folders to get to them. All I have to do is scroll through one alphabetized playlist to find the songs I want.
But folders are alphebetized too, and when you're going by playlist instead of by song you save a LOT of time because instead of having to go through thousands and thousands of items you just have to go through dozens (or more if you've got a lot of albums/soundtracks)...
If I could ask for one feature in Windows 9x... - Great Rumbler - 2nd June 2006
Quote:But folders are alphebetized too, and when you're going by playlist instead of by song you save a LOT of time because instead of having to go through thousands and thousands of items you just have to go through dozens (or more if you've got a lot of albums/soundtracks)...
That kind of organization makes no sense to me.
If I could ask for one feature in Windows 9x... - A Black Falcon - 2nd June 2006
Having thousands of files in one folder relying solely on alphebitizing for your "organization" is such a horrible organizational system...
If I could ask for one feature in Windows 9x... - The Former DMiller - 2nd June 2006
I don't understand why either of you don't use a media player to do your organizing for you. I used to do something similar to ABF and keep my music organized in folders by artist and then album, but once iTunes came out in 2000 I stopped doing that and let the program do the organizing for me. Computers are suppose to save work for us so why not let them keep your music organized?
If I could ask for one feature in Windows 9x... - A Black Falcon - 2nd June 2006
Quote:I don't understand why either of you don't use a media player to do your organizing for you. I used to do something similar to ABF and keep my music organized in folders by artist and then album, but once iTunes came out in 2000 I stopped doing that and let the program do the organizing for me. Computers are suppose to save work for us so why not let them keep your music organized?
Winamp is the best MP3 player and I don't like its included organizational system thing... but also I like keeping my hard drive organized. It's not just about how easy it is to access but if the system as a whole is organized well... while there are definitely plenty of areas of overlap or oddities in my organizational system, everything has its place and for the most part there isn't too much duplication, apart from when one partition doesn't have enough space so I've got to have similar folders on several drives. :) But yeah, I like knowing that my system is organized, and folders with thousands of items in them are the opposite of organized.
... I admit, I do break my own rules sometimes. My main anime wallpaper folder has a lot of things in them, just organized alphabetically... (there are different folders for categories, like games, anime, etc, but the two main anime wallpapers folders each have about 900 images in them...)... but videogame screenshots are kept in folders, with folders for each game... I just didn't think it was worth the time to subfolder-ize the wallpapers collection when I don't have to use it very often and that is something that is handy to all have in one list -- so you can just scroll up and down to look at the image previews. It is messy, but oh well... I don't use it much. :)
If I could ask for one feature in Windows 9x... - Great Rumbler - 2nd June 2006
The vast majority of the music I have is videogame music. I don't think that iTunes is going to help me much there.
Quote:Having thousands of files in one folder relying solely on alphebitizing for your "organization" is such a horrible organizational system...
They all have seperate folders. I just use a playlist to keep track of all of them. It's much, much easier than having a big pile of folders that I have to go through everytime I want a particular song or set of songs. I like organization as much as the next person, but I also like to have all my things in one place. What's next? Seperate computers for different games? Not on my watch!!
If I could ask for one feature in Windows 9x... - The Former DMiller - 2nd June 2006
Well, just because it's videogame music doesn't mean you can't tag it and organize it. I'm pretty obsessive when it comes to organization so the fact that you have all of your music lumped into one folder is killing me as much as it seems to bother ABF. Anyway, here's what I would do if I had mostly videogame music. I'd use the album to specify which game the music is from, the genre to specify the game genre, and the artist to specify the publisher. That way you could create a lot of custom playlists based on the best RPG songs, the best Nintendo songs, the best Nintendo songs from platformers, etc. Of course, it means you have to tag 5,000 songs so you probably wouldn't want to do that, but that's how I would organize them. Since I'm bored watching the Cubs lose right now I imported some of my videogame music onto my laptop to show you what I mean:
![[Image: itunes.png]](http://www.derekmiller.us/itunes.png)
If I could ask for one feature in Windows 9x... - A Black Falcon - 2nd June 2006
He did say that at least his hard drive organization isn't in one big file, I think...
Really, it is tricky. On the one hand, you can organize stuff in the software. This is best done through ID3 tags -- but adding them is a slow, tedious process if the files don't have them already, to say the least... or, you can categorize them in a similar fashion through a folder tree. Quicker, not as nice looking in Winamp, but so much easier... I kind of do both -- mostly I just leave the files as they are, but some I have put tags on (for developer and game name)... but really I mostly do the 'folder sorting' just because it's so much easier. It may be confusing in my 'all files' playlist (many files without recognizable names or without the game they're from in the name...), but as I don't use that much and instead use separate playlists... :)
Oh yeah, and as for players, I like minimalist. My biggest problem with Windows Media Player (WMP) is that it's bloated... the interface is bloated, the shrunk mode has no features, and it's just generally slow and no good. RealPlayer is nice and small, but similarly lacks features when compared to Winamp... (it's the best video player though, so I use RealPlayer for video files -- not DVDs, which go to WinDVD, but other video files) Winamp is nice and clean and small, has lots of skins (I love my PodAmp skin! :) Pod was a great game, and the skin is pretty nice... simple Winamp2 design, but it's all you need...), doesn't take up too much memory...