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USING WINDOWS 7 -
WINDOWS EXPLORER AND FOCUS

Brian Grainger

brianATgrainger1.freeserve.co.uk

We now come to the big topic with regard to using Windows 7 as a Techie - Windows Explorer. I read somewhere that Windows 7 is the first version of Windows to push Windows Explorer as a file management tool, with its icon in the taskbar ready to click. What a pity then that Microsoft have introduced bugs that have, in my opinion, made it ‘unfit for purpose’. Worse, Microsoft considered the bugs ‘features’ and refused to correct them for the service pack 1 upgrade, despite having corrected them in Windows 8! Along with the bugs there have been some really nice features introduced since earlier versions. The articles on Windows Explore will look at the good, the bad and the ugly of Windows Explorer for Windows 7.

Since Windows 95, Windows has had a ‘My Computer’ icon on the desktop to click that opened up to a file manager of sorts. In order to get to the full techie version of a file manager one had to traverse the start menu to the Accessories entry and click on Windows Explorer. In reality the two items open up the same program but with a different view and it is possible to meld one into the other by suitable preference selections. Of course, Windows Explorer is at the very heart of Windows and other features like the Desktop or Control Panel are simply Windows Explorer with a different view. I tend to ignore the Desktop and Start Menu to some extent and apart from my personal toolbar of regularly used programs I use Windows Explorer to manipulate files and run programs. In my world files are the key - programs are just tools to create and manipulate them! Windows Explorer is therefore my most important tool.

This first article on Windows Explorer will highlight one reason why I think the tool is not fit for purpose. The topic of 'Focus'.

When you start Windows Explorer it has a two pane view. In the left pane, called the Navigation pane, we have a list of folders and a few special areas like Desktop, Downloads and Libraries. In the right pane we have a list of contents of a folder, namely files and/or subfolders.

With Windows XP the following applied:

• Only one item ever had focus (was highlighted) - EITHER a folder in the left pane OR a file or group of files in the right pane.

• The files in the right pane were ALWAYS contained in the folder with focus, (highlighted folder) in the left pane.

• The default colour used for highlighting, dark blue, was distinct.

Here is an example of a display from Windows Explorer in Windows XP:

It is obvious from the display that folder 'test level 1' is highlighted and it contains the single item, folder 'test level 2'. If one were to press the delete key then I think it is clear what is deleted - folder 'test level 1' and its contents.

Now look at the equivalent view from Windows Explorer in Windows 7:

Now, I have to explain how this strange display can appear. First expand the folders of test level 1, 2, 3

If you click between test level 1 in the left pane and test level 2 in the right pane there is no problem. The clicked item is lightish blue and has focus. The other item is light brown and doesn't have focus.

However, if we carry out the following sequence:

Click test level 1 in the left pane - test level 1 in the left pane is highlighted

Click test level 2 in the right pane - test level 2 in the right pane is highlighted

Click test level 3 in the left pane - test level 3 in the left pane is highlighted and there is nothing in the right pane

Now click test level 1 in the left pane

The display will be as above. In fact, you will find the highlight of test level 2 in the right pane is clearly darker than that of test level 1 in the left pane. The above is just a screen capture by pressing PrtSCr and importing into Paint and the distinction between colours is not as obvious.

You may think that this is a contrived set of commands BUT when you are doing extensive file management it will happen, rarely enough to forget about the disaster that awaits …

With the situation as above we decide to delete the folder 'test level 2'. We think it has focus because the highlight is darker and so we hit the delete key. Most techies, because they know they want to delete, press the 'SHIFT delete' key to save having to delete everything again from the recycle bin immediately afterwards.

Wow - disaster falls - you find not only has folder 'test level 2' disappeared but folder 'test level 1' has gone as well! This is because, despite the screen display, folder 'test level 1' has focus because it was the last thing clicked!

In this contrived example we have not lost much, (folder 'test level 1'), but suppose the folder 'test level 1' had many files and folders underneath and you thought you were deleting just one of those folders ... Perhaps you will understand how I felt the first time it happened to me!

This would NEVER happen with Windows XP because there are never highlights in both left and right panes to cause confusion and the highlight is a nice dark blue anyway - it is obvious what has focus.

When this happens to you the first thing to do is NOTHING. Somehow those extra files and folders that have disappeared have to be recovered and writing to the disk partition that contains them might overwrite them and they will never be seen again. My first thought was I needed a file recovery tool. The tool I had used for years on Windows 98 and XP would only recover files within a folder and not whole folder structures. So, on another PC I searched the internet for a suitable tool. I found Recuva, a portable tool that did the job. I downloaded it and stuck it on a USB memory stick immediately. I now plugged the memory stick into my Windows 7 PC and ran Recuva. This searches the disk you select for any deleted files and folders and displays them. You select the files and folders to be recovered and tell Recuva to recover the selected items TO ANOTHER DISK PARTITION with the same names as they had originally. I had the foresight to partition my Windows 7 computer such that I had a spare blank NTFS partition ready. I didn't do it for this purpose but I was glad it was there now! You could not start creating partitions when you are trying to recover lost data. I recovered my data successfully and it was a simple matter to copy it back to the original partition once I had checked I had recovered everything.

That Recuva tool resides on my USB memory stick permanently and, yes, I have used it again - more than once. Even though I know about the problem I will STILL inadvertently delete things occasionally. Windows Explorer on Windows 7 is not fit for purpose.

There are other points about focus in Windows Explorer, not quite so disastrous but irritating nevertheless.

You can select folders by clicking on their name in the left pane of Windows Explorer. Techies often use the keyboard as well as a mouse so will use the cursor keys to move up and down the folder tree in the left pane. With Windows XP as the cursor moves folder so does the focus and the file list in the right pane changes according to the folder highlighted in the left pane. This is very handy to quickly look for files you know are within one of the folders listed.

With Windows 7 this is not possible. Despite the focus changing to the folder where the cursor resides, the file display in the right pane remains that in the folder from where you started! In the example above if I used the cursor down key to move from folder 'test level 1' to folder 'test level 3' you would get the quite ludicrous situation where the contents of 'test level 1' (test level 2) are displayed in the right pane when the focus in the left pane is on 'test level 3'. With Windows 7, if you want to see the contents of the folder with current focus you have to hit 'Enter' each time you move folder with the cursor key.

Here is another strange difference between Windows Explorer on Windows XP and Windows Explorer on Windows 7 related to focus.

With Windows XP, Windows Explorer displays the + sign next to closed folders which have subfolders beneath them. This changes to a - sign when the folder is opened. These are always displayed wherever the focus.

With Windows 7 when the focus is in the folder tree of the left pane you see arrow symbols next to folders which have subfolders beneath them. These are white right facing arrows when the folder is closed and black arrows pointing in a south east direction when the folder is opened (see the figure above). Very flashy if you like that sort of thing. However, if you move the focus to the right pane these arrows disappear, (see the figure below)! Why? It is still useful to know the potential folder structure even when working on files.

This time I have concentrated on some not so good features of Windows Explorer in Windows 7. Next time I will mention some good points - promise!

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