Windows explorer - Status bar...

[UncleSpellbinder]

Specifically, it is the lack of info when a folder is selected....

see this post for good example.

https://www.neowin.net/forum/index.php?show...amp;p=590752514

Yeah. I get it. But what more should there be. It's a folder. You can see what's in it by looking.

Not trying to be confrontational, just not sure what else could be put in that space.

[Rickkins]

Yeah. I get it. But what more should there be. It's a folder. You can see what's in it by looking.

Not trying to be confrontational, just not sure what else could be put in that space.

Again...as illustrated, current size of folder, as before, and space left on hd.

Very handy when adding file to a folder, for burning etc.

Taking all the info away, is a step backward. At the very least, we should be able to choose to see it or not.

[Shokus]

I certainly hope someone at MS would read this and consider implementing some of the ideas here. Would be a nice addition to Windows 7!

[Lord Ba'al]

I certainly hope someone at MS would read this and consider implementing some of the ideas here. Would be a nice addition to Windows 7!

Yes, that an a customisable Explorer toolbar would be very nice indeed.

[SadlyNo]

Moreover, when selecting 16 files or more, one should not have to click on "Show more details" just to check the total size of all the files selected. It becomes an absolute irritant when trying to decide on the number of media files to select to burn into a disk - clicking a few extra files and overshooting the limit, whoops, unselect one and click "Show more details" again, whoops, still not enough, gotta unselect another and click again... aargh carpal tunnel syndrome. It would be so much better if I could just select the first file, press Shift and Down Arrow, and slowly watch as the total file size increase (>15 items).

Bingo!

[Brandon Live Veteran]

The status bar is off by default because its functionality has been moved elsewhere. It is still available for compatibility / accessibility reasons, though honestly I wouldn't be surprised if it disappears eventually.

Moreover, when selecting 16 files or more, one should not have to click on "Show more details" just to check the total size of all the files selected. It becomes an absolute irritant when trying to decide on the number of media files to select to burn into a disk - clicking a few extra files and overshooting the limit, whoops, unselect one and click "Show more details" again, whoops, still not enough, gotta unselect another and click again... aargh carpal tunnel syndrome. It would be so much better if I could just select the first file, press Shift and Down Arrow, and slowly watch as the total file size increase (>15 items).

Computing those details is expensive. Most of the time if you select that many files (often by pressing Ctrl+A) you're just going to copy them. So why waste CPU + I/O (which could be network I/O) just because the user selected stuff?

[SadlyNo]

The status bar is off by default because its functionality has been moved elsewhere.

So how does one turn it back on? And where else is that functionality?

Computing those details is expensive. Most of the time if you select that many files (often by pressing Ctrl+A) you're just going to copy them. So why waste CPU + I/O (which could be network I/O) just because the user selected stuff?

Well, in some/many (?) cases, those details are already computed -- all I'd like is to know the total size of the files in a given directory.

The existing "feature" (show more details) does show the total size of the files selected, along with the range of the "date modified/created" of the files in question. Frankly I doubt the latter is of much use to anyone -- if one wants to save CPU + I/O.

[Brandon Live Veteran]

Weird, doubled my post.

[Brandon Live Veteran]

Size is a difficult one to compute quickly when folders are involved. Just open the Properties dialog on a set of large folders. You'll hear your disk grinding away and the number will climb for 10, 20, or even 30+ seconds depending on how many files and folders there are. Doing that on selection would be pretty rude.

There are other consideration too. Unnecessary work costs battery life. Walking the folder hierarchy may jump to other drives or network locations, may cause a disk to spin up, etc.

[drbobiii]

I'm sure some of you know but I still feel compelled to point out: hovering the mouse over a folder for a second brings up a tooltip that shows its size. It doesn't work for multiple folders or for the folder you are currently exploring, but for all sub-folders it's a lot easier than right click -> properties.

[SadlyNo]

Size is a difficult one to compute quickly when folders are involved. Just open the Properties dialog on a set of large folders. You'll hear your disk grinding away and the number will climb for 10, 20, or even 30+ seconds depending on how many files and folders there are. Doing that on selection would be pretty rude.

Well, this might be relevant if I wanted size information for all folders in a list, rather than only the total size of files in a given folder.

Walking the folder hierarchy may jump to other drives or network locations, may cause a disk to spin up, etc.

I may well be a bit slow, but how is this relevant? The list of files (and possibly details e.g. date modified, size of a given file, etc) already needs to be displayed, what's the trouble in having the OS add up the size of the files? It's not like this hasn't been the case for a long time now, from a point where there was much less CPU power and slower hard drives.

I'd still love to know how to turn the status bar back on and where the functionality has been moved.

[Rickkins]

The status bar is off by default because its functionality has been moved elsewhere. It is still available for compatibility / accessibility reasons, though honestly I wouldn't be surprised if it disappears eventually.

Moved elsewhere...???

Quite right...moved to a third party app that does what explorer ought to do.

Computing those details is expensive.

Ok this one is a shocker....

Do you seriously expect anyone to buy such a lame statement..??

[paranoyd]

When entering any folder, the detail pane should show how many files and folders (or items) exist in this current folder (which is present now), and the total size of all the objects in this folder.

Exactly. Something you already have now with XP but some how it made sense to Microsoft to remove such simple functionality. I thought Windows 7 was designed with less clicking in mind. If you make me go to the context menu how was this achieved?

Moreover, when selecting 16 files or more, one should not have to click on "Show more details" just to check the total size of all the files selected.

Again, even more functionality lost with more clicking.

As much as I like Windows 7 (skipped Vista), explorer has been a complete disappointment and has done nothing but slow me down. It's gone backwards in functionality. Even the static toolbar is completely useless but that's another thread. Since Microsoft now forces me to go to the context menu, in order to speed up many simple operations I'm now using an app called Strokeit which lets me use mouse gestures within explorer.

[Shokus]

Size is a difficult one to compute quickly when folders are involved. Just open the Properties dialog on a set of large folders. You'll hear your disk grinding away and the number will climb for 10, 20, or even 30+ seconds depending on how many files and folders there are. Doing that on selection would be pretty rude.

There are other consideration too. Unnecessary work costs battery life. Walking the folder hierarchy may jump to other drives or network locations, may cause a disk to spin up, etc.

Ok that is understandable, but then, not everyone is on laptops. Perhaps having an option in the advanced menu of folder options could bring this functionality back for desktop users, or maybe, info about size of files and folders could be integrated into the indexing service such that highlighting the folders would allow Windows to retrieve information about the total size directly by adding up numerical values saved in the index? I'm not familiar with the inner workings of Windows, so I'm just throwing out ideas. Feel free to point out if it is unfeasible.

[Rickkins]

Ok that is understandable, but then, not everyone is on laptops. Perhaps having an option in the advanced menu of folder options could bring this functionality back for desktop users, or maybe, info about size of files and folders could be integrated into the indexing service such that highlighting the folders would allow Windows to retrieve information about the total size directly by adding up numerical values saved in the index? I'm not familiar with the inner workings of Windows, so I'm just throwing out ideas. Feel free to point out if it is unfeasible.

Oh...ok I see it now, Brandon was talking about laptops....

Is windows 7 primarily meant for laptops...??

Because that is the only circumstance that that excuse could even be remotely plausible.

[GreenMartian]

Size is a difficult one to compute quickly when folders are involved. Just open the Properties dialog on a set of large folders. You'll hear your disk grinding away and the number will climb for 10, 20, or even 30+ seconds depending on how many files and folders there are. Doing that on selection would be pretty rude.

There are other consideration too. Unnecessary work costs battery life. Walking the folder hierarchy may jump to other drives or network locations, may cause a disk to spin up, etc.

If we're talking about traversing the directory structure, then yes, I can understand that it's expensive.

But the statusbar in previous versions normally show only the size of *files* in the current directory (excluding subdirs). Windows already has to read their names when we open up the folder; Surely it can't be that much more expensive to also read their sizes, and sum them up?

[Rickkins]

I recommend people check out xplorer?, available in 32 or 64 bit flavors...

This puppy rocks, and is everything that windows explorer ought to be, but for some inexplicable reason, isn't.

Super fast.(waayyy faster the winexplorer)

Way more customizable....

But best of all, easily does that which the geniuses at ms could not manage....shows my folder size....YAY !!!

I've been trying a few...but this is the one that will get my money....

[Eric Veteran]

If we're talking about traversing the directory structure, then yes, I can understand that it's expensive.

But the statusbar in previous versions normally show only the size of *files* in the current directory (excluding subdirs). Windows already has to read their names when we open up the folder; Surely it can't be that much more expensive to also read their sizes, and sum them up?

It does... when you select them. However, if your selection includes a folder it doesn't show you the selection size because that folder might have 50,000 files in it and Windows would crawl every time you selected a folder.

EDIT: Weird... at least under Vista the limit appears to be 8 files. If I select 9 or more it stops showing the size of the selected files.

[GreenMartian]

It does... when you select them. However, if your selection includes a folder it doesn't show you the selection size because that folder might have 50,000 files in it and Windows would crawl every time you selected a folder.

EDIT: Weird... at least under Vista the limit appears to be 8 files. If I select 9 or more it stops showing the size of the selected files.

But it never did crawl the folders back in the XP days. You go in a folder, it shows down the bottom the total size of the files in there. Not in the subfolders. We don't care about the subfolders. That's when we do the extra steps of right-clicking and selecting properties.

I recommend people check out xplorer?, available in 32 or 64 bit flavors...

Funny you had to mention it. I've used it since it was still called 2xExplorer. Even its current lite (free) version is quite awesome. But then we're getting slightly off-topic here:pp

Some of the things I love from x? has been implemented in explorer, and I'm glad for it. One of my favourite was highlighting the folder we were in before when we go up one level (or keeping the selection when doing a refresh). I hated how XP always takes you back to the first item.

Then they (microsoft) take away some of the useful functions... Namely the useful info in status bar, and the ability to customise toolbars.

[Calum Veteran]

But it never did crawl the folders back in the XP days.

[...]

Then they (microsoft) take away some of the useful functions... Namely the useful info in status bar [...]

You do know that there were some major backend and architectural changes in Windows Vista, from Windows XP, don't you? Now, I don't know if this would have definately affected the ability to do what you desire efficiently (i.e. not making Windows ridiculously slow when trying to calculate very large folders), but my guess is that it did (please correct me if I'm wrong, Brandon :D). Why else would it work in Windows XP, but not Windows Vista? The fact that this is not available in Windows Vista is perfectly fine in my opinion because the backend changes made in Windows Vista were for the better and to make the operating system more efficient and more secure (as far as I am aware).

I don't understand why you guys are complaining so much, when you can just select the files, right-click, click 'Properties' and then see the total file size. Yes, it's a few extra clicks, but how often do you need to do this? Surely not often? Surely the benefits of the architectural changes in Windows Vista are more important than having the total file size displayed in the status bar, when you can find the total file size this way?

[Rickkins]

I don't understand why you guys are complaining so much, when you can just select the files, right-click, click 'Properties' and then see the total file size. Yes, it's a few extra clicks, but how often do you need to do this? Surely not often? Surely the benefits of the architectural changes in Windows Vista are more important than having the total file size displayed in the status bar, when you can find the total file size this way?

Yer kidding me, right...???

Loss of functionality ought to have everyone's attention. It truly baffles me that we can see people making excuses for msft over this. That a third party app can not only do it...plus do everything faster & better before 7 is even released ought to tell most people everything they need to know........

"benefits of the architectural changes"...puh-lease...

[GreenMartian]

I don't understand why you guys are complaining so much, when you can just select the files, right-click, click properties and then see the total file size. Yes, it's a few extra clicks, but how often do you need to do this? Surely not often? Surely, the benefits of the architectural changes in Windows Vista are more important than having the total file size displayed in the status bar, when you can find the total file size this way?

Nonono. I think you don't really get what we mean. It's not simply "a few extra clicks"

Let's say I have a folder, with 100 subfolders and 25 files in it. The subfolders may have 1 million files in them, I don't care. I just want to know the size of those 25 files.

In XP all I had to do is:

1. Glance at the status bar, without the need of touching a single button.
   

In Vista/7, I have to:

1. Scroll through the 100 folders to get to the first of my 25 files (either by mouse or keyboard, probably easier with mouse).
   
2. Then do a Shift-End, or scroll through to the end and press shift-click to select the files. Again, only the files. Not subfolders.
   
3. Then either click on "show more details" on the task pane, or Right-click > properties, or Alt-Enter.
   

Those are not an extra couple of clicks. Those are several combinations of keyboard and mouse clicks.

That being said, I should probably just move on with the times, and accept that maybe the benefits of the architectural changes do outweigh the convenience of having this feature I so love.

[ozgeek]

Computing those details is expensive. Most of the time if you select that many files (often by pressing Ctrl+A) you're just going to copy them. So why waste CPU + I/O (which could be network I/O) just because the user selected stuff?

Yet, Win9x and 2000 and XP did not had those problems and even then computers then was much weaker than what we have today. When computing folder sizes, the system was still responsive and fast. Something in Vista and 7 MS have messed up.

Idea not taken at MS yet? What if I want to burn a CD or DVD, do i just add all files in a folder to the DVD drive folder? and then gets a message saying it's too big. Telling me in the source folder would have solved this problem.

How many people burn data and dvd's or copy stuff to usb sticks? And remember how big current hard drives are in comparative to CDs and DVDs and usb sticks. Excatly the modern of comparing a hard drive to a 1.44MB floppy disk.

Edited July 10, 2009 by ozgeek

[Brandon Live Veteran]

If we're talking about traversing the directory structure, then yes, I can understand that it's expensive.

But the statusbar in previous versions normally show only the size of *files* in the current directory (excluding subdirs). Windows already has to read their names when we open up the folder; Surely it can't be that much more expensive to also read their sizes, and sum them up?

Lots of users are confused if you show them a "shallow" computation (i.e. showing the sizes of just the files in the current directory and not those contained in subfolders).

Second, no Windows didn't already have to read their names. The only files that Explorer has to know anything about are the ones actually visible (at least until you start scrolling, or do a multi-select operation). Before that, Vista (and moreso in Windows 7), the view is virtualized. Again this is done to offer a more responsive, less I/O-intensive experience. Why load the names and other details of files that aren't visible when 90% of the time the user isn't even going to scroll?

Virtaulized views make the Explorer scale far better than before, so you can open a directory containing tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of items (or do a search that returns that many results) and it will be just as responsive as if you opened a folder with 10 files. If we actually had to load file data for that many items it would make browsing less responsive and cause a bunch of unnecessary I/O.

Nonono. I think you don't really get what we mean. It's not simply "a few extra clicks"

Let's say I have a folder, with 100 subfolders and 25 files in it. The subfolders may have 1 million files in them, I don't care. I just want to know the size of those 25 files.

Who does this? What use is this operation?

I'm not aware of any scenarios where this would be a useful thing to do. If you have an example of one that is common I would love to hear it.

[ozgeek]

Who does this? What use is this operation?

I'm not aware of any scenarios where this would be a useful thing to do. If you have an example of one that is common I would love to hear it.

Do you ever do any disc burning of data or ever used a USB stick?

Those who do disc burning or copying to USB sticks. Almost 99% computers have a form of disc burning equipment. There is no CD/DVD or Blu-ray discs to match the sizes of current hard drive. So MS think all we need to do is just drag those files into the disc window when it might NOT FIT. What do you think a novice user going to do when this don't work? "drive broken", "maybe wrong CD or DVD". Many things can confuse users.

So disabling the EASY ability to see the sizes of the files you are draging is actually making Windows harder and more frustrating to use. Maybe I should switch to ubuntu which, like every OS should, have this feature.