back to article Modern life is rubbish – so why not take a trip down memory lane with Windows File Manager?

First released as part of Windows 3.0 in 1990 before shuffling into the digital deadzone following the end of support for Windows NT 4.0, the venerable File Manager application has made a surprising comeback on Windows 10 following a release of the source code on GitHub. A tool beloved by those too timid to go near the command …

  1. Unicornpiss
    Thumb Up

    Cool beans..

    The best part has to be it not nagging you to use the cloud for storing everything.

    For those that want a nice file manager for Windows with some extra features, Explorer++ is pretty decent, and also portable. It can be a bit crashy when you ask it for things like displaying the size of huge network folders though.

    1. MyffyW Silver badge

      Love the headline...

      Only interested if it has a picture of Mallard on the help screen

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Love the headline...

        It's a relic of a simpler time and, at just over 700kB when compiled with modern tools, a leaner time too.

        Parklife!

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Love the headline...

          >Parklife!

          Wrong album :-)

          Food processors are great.

        2. Hans 1
          Happy

          Re: Love the headline...

          "Sunday, Sunday here again, tidy attire"

          https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IjH2_fbjRCc

          Worth it ... ;-)

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Cool beans..

      If I'm using cloud storage, I'm definitely not using Microsoft's cloud.

      Perish the thought, SatNad.

      The best file manager I've used to date is Ghisler's Total Commander. What it lacks in eye candy, it more than makes up with common sense and functionality.

      Bonus: no Onedrive nags.

      1. CrazyOldCatMan Silver badge

        Re: Cool beans..

        Ghisler's Total Commander

        Which is itself a clone of the venerable Norton Commander. On my linux/FreeBSD boxes I *always* install Midnight Commander (likewise a clone) for the same reasons - doing stuff to files and directories[1] in a nice easy fashion.

        [1] I can't bring myself to call it a 'folder'

      2. jackalek

        Re: Cool beans..

        I can concur, I could not work with anything else, and I do a lot of file management.

        Proud owner of a licence for this masterpiece of software. To be honest, this is the only thing which stops me from using Linux on my work machine, the file manager. I do poke Linux via Putty (kitty actually) on daily basis, but the Linux desktop is a no-go area due to lack decent file manager.

    3. J. R. Hartley

      Re: Cool beans..

      God I miss the Amiga :'(

      1. bombastic bob Silver badge
        Unhappy

        Re: Cool beans..

        I miss 3D Skeuomorphic [in windows anyway]

        The article's example photo had those DIETY CONDEMNED 2D FLATSO DECORATIONS like "Ape" and Win-10-nic.

        I remember when Windows XP was accused of being 'bulbous'. Well, so the hell WHAT. It's a lot BETTER than FLATSO.

        Win 3.x with its File Manager and Program Manager sold BECAUSE OF THE 3D SKEUOMORPHIC APPEARANCE, which was CLEARLY SUPERIOR to the Windows 2.x "flatso" look.

        At least Win 2.x had more COLOR in their 'Flatso' than APE or Win-10-nic.

  2. m0rt

    Pfawwwww..

    Xtree Gold ftw.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Xtree Gold ftw.

      I find Eaglemode quite fun ... although I never use it for anything, and it's a bit recent for this thread probably.

      1. lorisarvendu

        Re: Xtree Gold ftw.

        I'm a major Xtree fan, which is why I have been using Ztree for probably going on 10 years now.

        http://www.ztree.com/html/ztreewin.htm

  3. israel_hands

    Xtree Gold was the mutt's nuts! I used to use it for cracking games on floppies back in the day, then sending them back in jiffy backs to some dodgy Swedish block who ran a BBS.

    I was particularly impressed when I started opening Star Controll II source files in it using hex-view and could see all the ship designs in ascii.

    Good times.

    1. David Hall 1

      Thank you for the memories. Totally forgot about Xtree but you are bang on right !

    2. MyffyW Silver badge

      Got to love anything with a hex-editor.

      Total tangent, but messing with the hex code in Frontier.exe could make some of the core worlds much more interesting. Want a space station round Venus? Five minutes editing and there we go.

      1. MrDamage Silver badge

        Loved XTG.

        So many of my mates x86 computers stopped saying "Bad command or filename" , and started saying "Learn to spell, dickhead"

        Normally just after I remmed out everything in autoexec and config.sys, and used XTG to give everything else +RSH attributes.

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Coffee/keyboard

    Ahhh my favorite was two panes with save off so it always opened the same way, we have all gone our ways sonce then, But I always loved 'list.com' by Vernon Buerg a directory lister and file viewer - Just the best, and quietly so.

    Like so many others RIP Vernon Buerg

    P.S Few people knew, that you could add addins/extensions to fileman.exe it usually had the mail extension, but others could be written to also work and you could use right click on files, and if clever even use shell32.dll and get Explorer right click functionality.

    1. localgeek

      I remember list.com fondly. A simple, but useful way to browse through directories and quickly view the contents of text files.

  5. g00se
    FAIL

    life extension - file extension

    File extensions visible in that screenshot. I'm wondering if they used to hide them by default in those days ...

    1. LenG

      Re: life extension - file extension

      Nope - it took them a long time to rise to that level of stupidity.

      1. m0rt

        Re: life extension - file extension

        The trick is not to show anyone anything that might upset them.

        Hence the ubiquitous search on modern OSes that helpfully fail to show you the location of the files it finds unless you click on the bugger first.

        Unless that is just MacOS.

        Ever get the feeling we are moving backward?

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: life extension - file extension

          "The trick is not to show anyone anything that might upset them.

          Hence the ubiquitous search on modern OSes that helpfully fail to show you the location of the files it finds unless you click on the bugger first.

          Unless that is just MacOS."

          No windows 10 search is the same, although you cam tweak it to provide more info, it doesn't by default show the location

          1. Unicornpiss

            Re: life extension - file extension

            One of my peeves with Windows is in the search--and other places, you can select "details" for your view as many times as you want, but it will never save your prefs. Apparently Microsoft knows what's best for you when it comes to how you want to view your files. And apparently we all must suffer big, blocky icons as the default view for so many things.

            1. DropBear
              Trollface

              Re: life extension - file extension

              Ah, you're right - I forgot search isn't spelled "Agent Ransack" by default in windows...

        2. JLV

          Re: life extension - file extension

          You may find this of interest:

          https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/317992/is-there-any-way-to-get-the-path-of-a-folder-in-macos/

          Not defending Finder in the least, but still a useful shortcut. I use Forklift.

          One thing I suspect Apple likes to do is to have you rely as much as possible on its system, rather than giving you context. Besides doing this to filenames, they also helpfully make it very difficult to show an actual phone #, rather than a contact name, in iOS. Fear of getting lost - another way to keep you from straying on to other pastures.

          BB10, on the contrary, would display both the contact name as well as the #.

    2. J. R. Hartley

      Re: life extension - file extension

      God I miss Datatypes on the Amiga. There has never been a more beautiful, elegant operating system before or since.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: life extension - file extension

        Beautiful ?

        really ?

  6. David Hall 1

    Oh the memories

    It was Windows 3.0. My first IBM PC.

    File manager, a bit of messing around, and within 3 minutes I had deleted command.com / autoexec

    Bat etc.

    That was the first, and last time, I broke a PC that I couldn't, myself, subsequently fix.

    1. Sanguma

      Re: Oh the memories

      Not much hand-holding those days, eh!

  7. Dave Bell

    This is one of a small group of programs that set the common ground for so much software. Apple were earlier, of course, but so many people have used this that it would be folly to be too different. English has its Great Vowel Shift. For computers, this was part of a similar big change.

  8. SVV

    Surprising Comeback on Windows 10

    Not half as surprising as the comeback of its' much loathed sibling Program Manager, whose collection of icons to start applications made a surprising comeback as the default launch mechanism in Windows 8, except that they weren't icons any more of course, they were "live tiles" and it was called the Start Screen rather than Program Manager.

    Plus ca change.....

    1. GreenBit

      Re: Surprising Comeback on Windows 10

      M$ never seemed to learn the lesson that Apple learned at xeorox; users could give a fig about your [..] programs, users want to focus on their own data. I.e., icons for the documents, not for the 'applications'. No one ever sat down at the computer with the express intent of playing with Word or Excel itself. You interact with those programs because they happen to be the tools on your system for revising your reports and spreadsheets.

      It's almost comical to see them return again and again to the program-centric interfaces. Of course they're a bit obsessed with programs, that's what they do, they build programs - but it also illustrates that they've never bothered to really understand their *users*

      1. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

        Re: Surprising Comeback on Windows 10

        "No one ever sat down at the computer with the express intent of playing with Word or Excel itself."

        Well, that pair, never. The LibreOffice equivalents are a different matter. If the program icons are sitting on the panel waiting to be clicked it can be the quicker way to bring up a recent document. On the whole I agree with your sentiment, however; the idiocy of UX designers who seem to think forbidding data icons on the desktop is beyond belief.

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        "Apple learned at xeorox; [..] users want to focus on their own data."

        That's why iOS is so application-centric?

        Only file/document-centric applications are file-first. Other tools are application-centric.

        What is it faster, look for a web-site in a multitude of link icons, or typing a URL? If you need to search a database? Sometimes is also easier to look for the file you need inside an application, that in the file system, because the application understand more about the data than the file system.

    2. Robert Helpmann??
      Childcatcher

      Re: Surprising Comeback on Windows 10

      Plus ca change.....

      ...plus ça devient de la merde.

      I so wish OS publishers would treat the GUI as a separate, distinct thing. This applies many times over to Microsoft who have cost untold amounts of time in re-training people do do the exact same jobs they had previously done for years. Every time there is an OS or application upgrade, they push out something new. None of it is great, but at some point it works and those that only use 10% don't need anything more. Those that use the other bits don't get excited over wasting more time over the egos in Redmond imposing another change, or at least not in a good way. Change should not be conflated with progress. Added functionality should not require a complete revamp of the user interface in order to be implemented.

      Also, PowerShell is a command line interface, despite the phrasing in the article that implied otherwise. Like everything else Microsoft, it was a change that no-one was crying out for.

  9. Ellipsis
    Facepalm

    > over 700kB when compiled with modern tools

    Ah, progress…

    1. Phil Endecott

      >> over 700kB when compiled with modern tools

      > Ah, progress…

      Anyone know how large the original executable was?

      1. Solmyr ibn Wali Barad

        Winfile.exe version 3.10 dated 10/14/97 3:10a 146,864 bytes

        1. Richard 12 Silver badge

          The original was 16bit

          So on 64 bit it should be four times bigger and eight times better, right?

      2. Ellipsis
        Windows

        In NT 3.51 it’s 250 KB.

        I don’t think I’ve got a copy of Windows 3.0 to be able to dig out the original. I joined the party around the time of 3.1, though I do just remember Reversi (as somebody mentioned elsewhere).

  10. x 7

    There was something similar in DOS5. Anyone remember what that was called? It was removed in DOS6 because the assumption everyone would be using Windows

    Symantec (or Norton?) Utilities also had a better file manager with it

    1. x 7

      doh!

      the DOS5 program was DOSSHELL........

      how could I forget that?

      1. This post has been deleted by its author

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Probably that extra 'S' is what throws you off..

        1. Not That Andrew

          Aah, good old DOS Hell!

  11. Steve Davies 3 Silver badge

    Enjoy Windows Explorer?

    Endure more like.

    Hence the alternatives which are even more important these days given the "Nanny knows best' attitude that eminates from Redmond.

    Not that MS is alone in dumbing their tools down.

    Finder on MacOS is [redacted] and [redacted]. Thankfully there are alternatives there as well.

    1. pscottdv

      Re: Enjoy Windows Explorer?

      Don't get me started on the Finder. Never before has a program been so inaptly named. They should call it the "Frustrater".

      1. Dan 55 Silver badge

        Re: Enjoy Windows Explorer?

        Finder on OS X has always been treated like a red-headed stepchild by Apple which is odd since it's the first thing everyone uses.

  12. 45RPM Silver badge

    Xtree or Norton Commander (actually, sod it, Midnight Commander on Linux). Windows FileManager was a necessary evil back in the day (at least, until one had installed a more capable alternative), but nowadays is of historical interest only - especially since its more capable competitors are often either free or abandonware now.

    I quite like muCommander.

    1. DropBear
      Devil

      Screw Norton. Volkov Commander for me! (Well ok, these days I accept MC as a substitute...)

  13. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    nice find....

    way batter that the current one, at least someone can change the fonts!!

  14. Anonymous South African Coward Bronze badge

    Pctools (V4.xx and earlier) was quite snappy. Later versions (v5 and up) tended to be bloated and slow.

    Edited microsoft's DOS mouse.com (the first PS/2 mice with add-in PS/2 cards) driver to display "machosoft moose" instead of "microsoft mouse" :)

  15. DuncanLarge Silver badge

    OMG can I say SQUEE?

    I have been waiting for this for ages! Finally I may be able to escape the sometimes incoherent mess that is File Explorer.

    I have tried all manner of file managers to get something useful that acutually looks nice. I must be the only one who hates win 10 flat everything and prefers 3D widgets.

    Having been released under the MIT license we shall see if the older code can get some new functionality to be a decent, retro looking and feeling, not to mention sanity preserving replacement for File Explorer. No more ribbon!

    Lol I remember installing cygwin on windows just so I could use midnight commander.

    To be honest I use File Explorer just fine but do HATE the flat graphical style of win 10. Its annoying and boring. I really miss a proper title bar that actually changes colour when you deselect a window so you can tell if it has focus or not before you start typing.

    Can we have pinball back next?

    1. Ellipsis

      Re: OMG can I say SQUEE?

      You’re not the only one, but Microsoft simply does not care.

      As for using the File Manager source as the basis of something decent for Windows 10: it’s a nice idea — but if Windows 10 has got to the stage where the guy who wrote Classic Shell has given up, you might have your work cut out…

      1. Poncey McPonceface
        Go

        Re: OMG can I say SQUEE?

        @Ellipsis

        Classic Shell guy may have given up but he open sourced the code before he left so it hasn't been abandoned! Classic Shell on Github

    2. 45RPM Silver badge

      Re: OMG can I say SQUEE?

      Pinball is way too modern. Othello FTW - Windows 1.0 through to 3.0, and sadly omitted from 3.1 onward.

    3. GreenBit

      Re: OMG can I say SQUEE?

      Or disappearing scroll bars that flit in and out of existence with mouse-over events. Or borderless blobs of text that function as buttons. Flat, bordeless, with washed out colors. And yet, touch a File menu and wham, it's full modal metro time! Yeah, not a fan of any M$ ui for a while now.

      Yeah XP out of the box looked like a kid's toy, but they left the controls in place so you could customize that. Lately though, they've tended to rip off the controls and leave you stuck with whatever the kids in Redmond think looks cool this sprint.

      1. Barry Rueger

        Re: OMG can I say SQUEE?

        I do not understand disappearing scroll bars. What is the point! (I'm thinking Gnome but...?)

        Since something like 1975 scrollbars have done two things well:

        a) At a glance they tell you how long a page or document is (a skinny slider means the document is long) and where you are within the document. (If the slider is one third of the way down the scrollbar, you're about one third of the way down the page or document.)

        b) It makes it easy to navigate within the document - click above or below the slider and you move one page up or down. Grab the slider and move it to navigate greater amounts up or down.

        What the disappearing scrollbars (in Gnome) do is:

        a) Remove the visual cues that tell you how long the page is and where you're located.

        b) Make it impossible to navigate using the mouse in any sensible fashion. It is literally impossible to move up or down one page at time without moving your hand off of the mouse to the keyboard.

        Once you've done this I can't see any practical reason to have any sort of scrollbar.

        What is the impulse to break established UI conventions?

        1. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

          Re: OMG can I say SQUEE?

          "What is the impulse to break established UI conventions?"

          Tinkering. Somebody wants to "do something" but the functionality is either (a) what's needed or (b)hard work but the interface can always be made more "modern".

        2. brotherelf

          Re: OMG can I say SQUEE?

          The bottomless pit interface broke both those functions of scrollbars anyway -- get too close to the bottom, the new 20 twitbook journal entries will move the slider away from under your pointer, resulting in a huge jump when you next move it.

          Yes, I would sincerely not be surprised if they broke scrollbars for everybody everywhere because twitter et al broke them in the browser.

          1. Barry Rueger

            Re: OMG can I say SQUEE?

            The bottomless pit interface broke both those functions

            Here's what baffles me. If disappearing scroll bars made it easier to navigate never-ending Web pages I could (somewhat) understand them.

            But they don't. I really, sincerely want someone to explain what problem they solve.

        3. Ellipsis

          Re: OMG can I say SQUEE?

          > scrollbars

          IRIX had a great little additional feature, which I’ve not seen anywhere else: as you dragged the slider, it drew a divot in the trough at the slider’s original position, allowing you easily to return to where you started.

          > What is the impulse to break established UI conventions?

          Ooh, new! Shiny!

        4. Solmyr ibn Wali Barad

          Re: disappearing scrollbars

          "b) Make it impossible to navigate using the mouse in any sensible fashion. It is literally impossible to move up or down one page at time without moving your hand off of the mouse to the keyboard."

          Tee-hee. There was a page (without scrollbars as the custom is) where clever designers re-used PgUp & PgDn keys for...drumroll...language selection!

          Hitting PgDn changed the page from English to Chinese. Took a bit of wondering about what the hell just happened. After some troubleshooting - several reloads, clearing of cookies, etc - I traced my last actions and managed to hit PgUp key to get back to English. Page help obviously neglected to mention such a valuable feature. And no, providing usual dropdown box for changing the language was obviously too passè.

          Aren't we living in wonderful times. So much progress around us.

      2. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

        Re: OMG can I say SQUEE?

        "Lately though, they've tended to rip off the controls and leave you stuck with whatever the kids in Redmond think looks cool this sprint."

        This! At least in previous versions of Windows, you could change the GUI in relatively significant ways to suit yourself instead of being forced into the "Redmond Drone" mould.

    4. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

      Re: OMG can I say SQUEE?

      "I must be the only one who hates win 10 flat everything and prefers 3D widgets."

      Oh no you're not. And that doesn't only go for W10 flatness. It applies everywhere although in other places there are options for fighting back.

    5. DuncanL

      Re: Can we have pinball back next?

      https://www.pcgamer.com/heres-how-to-bring-space-cadet-3d-pinball-back-to-windows/

    6. This post has been deleted by its author

      1. Ellipsis

        Re: OMG can I say SQUEE?

        > You know this works in windows 10?

        It didn’t in the early days – both active and inactive title bars were grey, and the shading on the active application’s taskbar button was barely perceptible, so it was impossible to tell at a glance which window was active. It’s just one example of the bigger point: Microsoft went out of their way to degrade the existing UI, which had worked brilliantly for years, solely in the pursuit of “Ooh, new! Shiny!” They may have relented now (in one or two places), but you know it was through gritted teeth.

        > Microsoft give you options to customise the appearance of the OS, and get what you want

        They give me a much more limited set of options than they used to, and I cannot get what I want…

    7. Updraft102

      Re: OMG can I say SQUEE?

      I must be the only one who hates win 10 flat everything and prefers 3D widgets

      For the Win32 bits, you just need to change the theme. You will need something to remove the Microsoft prohibition on installing unsigned themes (and they only sign their own), but there are several solutions for that (several patchers and one service that does the patching in memory. Just pick one!).

      For the UWP garbage... as far as I know, that can't be themed. I avoid it by avoiding any OS that has UWP in it.

      To get rid of the ribbon, there's Old New Explorer, and I think WinAero also has something that does this. I use Old New Explorer in Win 8.1 (also afflicted by the ribbon in Windows Explorer).

    8. Milton

      "... but do HATE the flat graphical style of win 10 ..."

      "To be honest I use File Explorer just fine but do HATE the flat graphical style of win 10. Its annoying and boring. I really miss a proper title bar that actually changes colour when you deselect a window so you can tell if it has focus or not before you start typing."

      I am down to just one program remaining which actually requires Windows, and I have its Linux alternative trained-in and ready for migration when MS ceases final support for W7. I use Linux for everything else so it'll be an easy transition.

      But I am not transitioning yet, because W7 (if you're prepared to cope with its miserable security) was the best UI version. Better even than XP's interface. It is easy to use, ok to look at, pretty intuitive ... despise MS as I do, W7 is still arguably the best desktop interface. For those doing productivity stuff on a powerful desktop system, no touchscreen or daft mobile-centric stuff, it is still actually a damn good environment. Sure, I have a ton of cores and RAM to deal with MS bloat. And yes, Linux is technically superior in every respect. But I am actually in no hurry to make this final move.

      So it is passing odd that W10 is so nasty, and such a massive backward step, that I am to be driven from MS. Even if I could turn off all the spyware, and even if I could laboriously re-skin the ludicrously inappropriate UI, I'd still have to cater for all the other backward steps, and really, what's the point when I can just leave?

      But it seems to me truly, very strange that from its best desktop UI, MS has regressed to something worse and significantly unpleasant to use. One might consider that unpseakable pile of shit, Vista, as a kind of wild aberration, and at least rapidly fixed; but there's no sign MS will ever fix its desktop UI now. We are stuck not only with the junkpile of ugly and unnecessary compromises for mobile, touch and crummy little apps, but with MS's strategic decision no longer to treat Windows users as paying customers, with rights and dignity, but as exploitable assets, like Face-addicts, Twit-zombies and Instag-cretins, to be forever stuck within its OS web, and eternally wrung dry for private data and perpetually nagged to become ever more dependent upon the shonky "cloud", where your private data become ransom-worthy hostages.

      Are there any other examples, in say the last 30 years, of a product being replaced with something in almost every way worse?

      1. Sanguma

        Re: "... but do HATE the flat graphical style of win 10 ..."

        "One might consider that unpseakable pile of shit, Vista, as a kind of wild aberration, and at least rapidly fixed"

        Vista was still in beta when it was released, and so we can truthfully refer to Microsoft Vistabeting; and yes, it does appear that Vistabetion makes one blind - Monkey Boy Ballmer couldn't see that there was any sort of problem.

  16. Jim 59

    And it had a little filing cabinet for an icon, very sensible.

    Here in Windows 8, the equivalent icon is a sort of tabbed paper folder stuck in what looks like a big shiny metal clip. You know, like we all keep paper files in. Not.

    1. PNGuinn
      Pint

      @ Jim 59

      Thankyou for enlightening a Penguinista.

      I always wanted to know where Clippy lived.

      Except that, from what I've heard, a disused basement lavatory is far to nice a place for W8.

      Tie it to systemd and nuke it from space?

  17. Youngdog

    Winfile.exe

    Very handy for kicking users out of files when that was a problem back in the day

  18. rmullen0

    Bring back DOSEDIT

    Personally, I with Microsoft would bring back or create a text based editor similar to DOSEDIT. Then, get it working on Linux so that you don't have to use a Linux's horrible editors like vi or emacs. Nano is a piece of garbage also.

    1. katrinab Silver badge

      Re: Bring back DOSEDIT

      Nothing wrong with emacs. Vi obviously is garbage though.

      1. hplasm
        Happy

        Re: Bring back DOSEDIT

        "Nothing wrong with emacs. Vi obviously is garbage though."

        Bah! I say And Fie!

        1. Mike Timbers

          Re: Bring back DOSEDIT

          Do you mean Bash and fi?

      2. vtcodger Silver badge

        Re: Bring back DOSEDIT

        "Nothing wrong with emacs."

        There's plenty wrong with EMACS (and plenty right also). But EMACS is, if nothing else, configurable. It is not too hard to configure EMACS such that when used with a keyboard with Insert,Home,End, etc keys, it's about as easy and intuitive to use as the MSDOS editor. I have no idea if vi can be set up to do that. Wouldn't surprise me that it can.

        1. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

          Re: Bring back DOSEDIT

          "I have no idea if vi can be set up to do that. "

          Neither have I but seeing as I've been using it since the days before keyboards had such fripperies there's no need for me to even check. The dreadful vim might well have that. My first encounter with that load was with a setup that had been configured to hide the ^Ms from then end of lines and as I wanted to use it to delete those I wasn't impressed. I was left wondering what else it might be set up to hide. So as far as possible vi and its relatives are links to /usr/bin/nvi.

    2. Missing Semicolon Silver badge

      Re: Bring back DOSEDIT

      You need nano. Just good enough to edit config files.

      Or, for a little more oomph, joe. Uses Wordstar chords for controls!

    3. GrumpenKraut
      Mushroom

      Re: Bring back DOSEDIT

      > ...working on Linux so that you don't have to use a Linux's horrible editors like vi or emacs.

      You could edit your config files with OpenOffice.

      I have seen the effects of doing this. Spectacular effects. ----->

    4. Solmyr ibn Wali Barad

      Re: Bring back DOSEDIT

      Who would need DOSEDIT when we have been blessed with EDLIN?

      /ducks quickly/

  19. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    The vintage Windows File Manager...

    ...is arguably superior in several ways to modern iterations of it.

  20. Christian Berger

    There used to be a time...

    ...when GUI designers actually cared about usability.

    1. ThomH

      Re: There used to be a time...

      During that period the primary design constraints were the API. Nowadays the primary design constraint is the design committee, empowered to safeguard the corporate design language du jour.

  21. Purple-Stater

    Ribbonless

    I dream of days without a ribbon in my interface. And actually being able to create a folder to contain a group of related shortcuts, that was actually just a folder of icons, rather than a full-blown File Explorer page.

    1. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

      Re: Ribbonless

      "I dream of days without a ribbon in my interface."

      https://www.libreoffice.org/download/download/

      https://www.kde.org/applications/system/dolphin/

  22. ratfox
    Devil

    Still superior to Finder

    (body)

    1. ThomH

      Re: Still superior to Finder

      Give it spring-loaded folders and then we can talk.

      1. 45RPM Silver badge

        Re: Still superior to Finder

        I don’t have the problem with Finder that many seem to - it works. It’s okay. But I can’t get excited about it. For my needs, a two panel interface works very nicely - and especially if it has a handy pane for entering command lines. Bonus points if it can be installed on multiple OSs so that I can switch from one machine to another without too much mental effort.

        But I thoroughly approve of all the choice that we have with regard to file managers. There’s something to suit everyone’s taste.

  23. TheGreatCabbage

    I installed the new release preview of Windows 10 (version 1803), looking forward to finally having tabs in File Explorer, and you know what? They've removed it.

    Now I've got to wait another 6 months...

  24. Paul Hovnanian Silver badge
    Boffin

    Still have one

    On Xfce. It's called Thunar. But I'm sure most of the Linux distros' desktops have something similar.

    And if you are feeling brave, there's always 'find' at a command prompt.

    1. DuncanLarge Silver badge

      Re: Still have one

      Find on the linux command prompt is not that hard as long as you dont make it too complex.

      However if I simply need to find a file quickly, I turn to 'locate'.

    2. DropBear
      Facepalm

      Re: Still have one

      Find will for me forever be associated with having to look up Yet Again how to redirect eleven hundred pages worth of "unable to open" to /dev/null. Until the next time I need it, when I duly have to look it up again. As for locate - it can find absolutely everything under the sun in the current- and any number of parallel dimensions, _except_ the exact file you're looking for.

  25. JimmyPage Silver badge
    Windows

    So many comments, but does no one remember

    when it was called "File mangler" ?

    1. Not That Andrew

      Re: So many comments, but does no one remember

      Or why it was called that, for that matter.

  26. technoise

    A step backwards for user interface design

    Given that twin panel file managers (Midnight Commander style, or Directory Opus for Amiganuts) had already proved their worth for many years prior to the release of this, Windows File Manager looked (to me) like an unnecessary step backwards for the GUI when it came out.

    OK - you've sort of got two panels with the directory listing on the left, but its use for drag and drop feels clunky, particularly if you accidentally click a directory in the wrong way and end up with the clicked-on directory ending up displayed in the main panel on the right.

    Now, who is going to bake a twin-panel file manager by default in a modern OS? You can get the option in some Linux desktop environments but it's usually by means of a hot-key for power users.

  27. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    File Manager supports MDI, Win10 theme doesn't

    File Manager supports MDI: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiple_document_interface

    While the Win10 theme doesn't: https://i.imgur.com/ZOcOBsl.png

    It's shocking how little love Win10 UI gets. I mean why the hell does it show the Vista theme plus the Win10 theme inter-mixed. And why does the double-click on the top-border of windows doesn't work anymore in Win10. Regressions over regressions. Win10 lacks any polishment at all, what a train wreck. Vista/Win7 have such a lovely polished UI plus the Win9x classic theme is available as well.

    1. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

      Re: File Manager supports MDI, Win10 theme doesn't

      "Win10 lacks any polishment at all"

      The problem is that the designers of all this modern stuff think it's more polished.

    2. TheGreatCabbage

      Re: File Manager supports MDI, Win10 theme doesn't

      Double-click works fine on Windows 10 as long as you're not using a UWP app.

  28. adam payne

    For some reason I now feel the need to boot up my Windows 3.11 VM.

    1. ThomH

      Nowadays you can just run it in your browser: https://archive.org/details/win3_stock

      Definitely don't use your browser's debugging tools, spot the big binary blob that just must be the machine image, download it, unzip it and use it with a local copy of DosBox rather than Archive.org's recompiled-for-JavaScript version. That would be illegal.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Win 3.11, For Workgroups?

      I remember the TADA sound playing when booting up.

  29. StuntMisanthrope

    Because, split screen to fade.

    It's like the world is working at two speeds, the young lassie (with the fake nails) next to me, with the millisecond text typing ability or the bloke opposite in charge with the PA who handles this instawhatsitstuff. "I'm into renewables".

    #blackaddercapital #itsaracetothecashpoint #tappetytapsaidthemanwiththeclock

  30. Luiz Abdala
    Holmes

    Hmm, 2xExplorer Z1.

    Now I know where 2xExplorer Z1 got its interface. Well done.

  31. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Nostalgia

    Having recently moved over to Macs for desktop and laptop i’m Feeling nostalgic for file deplorer, let alone file mangler right now. Finding finder a bit odd by comparison. Still a twenty plus year habit is a hard one to break ;-)

  32. martinusher Silver badge

    Just because its 'old' doesn't mean its useless

    That file manager view first saw the light of day with products like the Norton Commander. Its actually rather useful to have a tree view of the file system; I know its not very trendy, I'm supposed to navigate the filesystem using icons with pictures of stuff on them, but its practical. And fast.

    BTW -- I'm still one of those holdouts who call folders 'directories' (or 'sub-directories'). I've never lived in a world where I keep 'documents' inside 'folders' inside a 'filing cabinet', I've always had access to databases (and that heap of stuff in the corner).

  33. Sorry that handle is already taken. Silver badge

    winfile.exe?

    I thought I remembered it being fileman.exe, or was that something else?

    1. Richard 12 Silver badge

      Re: winfile.exe?

      Fileman was newer, Win 3.1 IIRC.

      Win 3.1 was very, very different to 3.0.

      1. BinkyTheMagicPaperclip Silver badge

        Re: winfile.exe?

        Nah.. it wasn't /that/ different. 2.1 to 3.0 was a larger difference for most people, especially as it consolidated three versions of Windows into one.

  34. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Pretty poor

    That I prefer to use winfile than the abomination that is windows 10 "explorer" (where all paths seem to want you to explore the internet with Bing/edge)

  35. trevorde Silver badge

    Backward compatibility

    Wow, can still compile and run the code after nearly 30 years! Now, *that* is backward compatibility, Apple.

  36. Danny 2

    Show hidden / system files

    Show where the past 25 years went. This article should have a warning, nostalgia is a nerve agent. Now I'm going to have to email my first love and drink a bottle of whisky.

    1. Unicornpiss
      Pint

      Re: Show hidden / system files

      "Now I'm going to have to email my first love and drink a bottle of whisky."

      That's the spirit... but you have the order of events wrong :)

  37. Sanguma

    That's a start, Microsoft

    Now I want more. Open the source for the Win 3.x, and Win9x, and WinNT 3.x and 4.x, under a suitable Open Source license. Get IBM to open the source for OS/2 2.x, 3.x and 4.x under a suitable Open Source license. Get HP to open the source of VAX VMS under a suitable Open Source license.

    MS Windows NT was initially a development of the IBM/Microsoft OS/2, that was redeveloped as something closer to DEC's VMS. So, to clear up the whole potential mess, now that The SCO Group formerly known as Caldera have shown just how dangerous unsecured IPR can be, particularly when parties have not made steps to clarify the issues, one would need to open the whole kit-and-caboodle up to public scrutiny in a manner that ensures it cannot be used against its original owners.

    1. BinkyTheMagicPaperclip Silver badge

      Re: That's a start, Microsoft

      Not going to happen. OS/2 contains a load of third party code that IBM can't release. It'd be really expensive for them to do it, and building it is non trivial.

      Additionally OS/2 is pretty unusual architecturally, and tends to be demanding on emulators/VMs because of that.

  38. This post has been deleted by its author

  39. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Go all the way I say

    Maybe we can see the return of those ultimate makeover party people from customize.org, windowblinds, bb4win, litestep and friends; these helpful people would give you enough tools to replace winfile.exe and give your desktop the look of a totally different computer that looked like it was made by UX/UI designers that had gone to interface heaven.

    If you were a winamp fan or an early linux adopter, you could find ways to make your workplace computer behave like your *nix box.

    But that was then

  40. kbutler.toledo

    I Remember ...

    I remember a DOS application that could be used in windows caller "Ifiler" or maybe 'Winfile" that showed sourc and destination on the same screen. Windows sucked compared to that one. Wish I could find a copy ...

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