Re: renaming the contents of a folder

Tech-Archive recommends: Repair Windows Errors & Optimize Windows Performance

Many ways to skin cat. Keep having fun, Durga.

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Hope this helps. Let us know.

Wes
MS-MVP Windows Shell/User

In news:859C68A2-664F-4721-B691-C9C30871716C@xxxxxxxxxxxxx,
prasad <prasad@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> hunted and pecked:
hi,
thank you very much Mr.Poprivet and Mr. Wesley Vogel. your reply greatly
helped solve my problem. I wonder how stupid i was all these days as i've
been working with windows from 1997 and i never thought of this way to
mass-rename. anyway thank you once again.

Durga.


"Poprivet" wrote:

prasad wrote:
Hi All,

I've 2 folders "Picnic" and "Camping" on my XP SP2 PC. Both these
contains lot of snaps taken on that both the occassions. They are
saved with diferent file names. i just want to rename my snaps in
"Picnic" folder to "Picnic1, Picnic2" and so on. likewise my
"Camping" folder too. But renaming each and every snap manually means
a tiring task as i got some 800 snaps. Someboy please tell me if
there is any built-in solution for windows to mass-rename things? I
knew there is one for sure, b'cos yesterday while going through some
folders, i've accidentally pressed some key combinations and all the
files in that folder got renamed after the folder name. I was
puzzeled and cursed myself for not remembering the keys that were
pressed. So, please somebody tell me what to do to accomplish this?

thanks in advance,
Durga.
---------------------------------------------------------------

Easy; forget the dodgy 3rd party stuff:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/320167

SUMMARY
This step-by-step article describes how to use Windows Explorer to rename
multiple files in Windows XP.
Back to the top

How to Rename Multiple Files with Windows Explorer
1. Start Windows Explorer. To do so, click Start, point to All
Programs, point to Accessories, and then click Windows Explorer.
2. Select multiple files in a folder. To do so, press and hold down
the CTRL key while you are clicking files.
3. After you select the files, press F2.
4. Type the new name, and then press ENTER.
NOTE: When you complete the preceding steps, the highlighted state of all
files except one disappears, so it may appear as if you are only renaming
one file. However, after you press ENTER, all of the files are renamed.
When you rename multiple files, all of the renamed files have the same
name with a number in parentheses appended to the name to make the new
file name unique. For example, if you type BUDGET as the new name, the
first file is named BUDGET. All of the remaining selected files are
named BUDGET(x), where x is a unique number, starting with (1).


Back to the top

Notes
If you make a mistake when you try to rename multiple files, you can
press CTRL+Z, or click Undo Rename on the Edit menu to undo file rename
action you just completed, and you can repeat this process as needed.

The Rename function in Windows Explorer does not match the behavior of
the REN command you may use at a command prompt. For example, if you had
files that are named smitha.doc, smithb.doc, and smithc.doc, you could
use the ren smith*.doc smythe*.doc command. All file names automatically
show the new spelling, and are renamed smythea.doc, smytheb.doc, and
smythec.doc.

If you use the Windows XP Rename function in Windows Explorer, after you
select the three "smith" files, and rename smitha.doc to smythea.doc, all
the other files you selected are named smythea(x).doc. To return to the
original file name structure (the use of a, b, c, etc), you must rename
each file individually

.

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