File Manager (Windows)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
File Manager is a file manager program bundled with releases of Microsoft Windows between 1990 and 1999.[1] It was intended to replace using MS-DOS to manage the user's files. File Manager was retired in favor of Windows Explorer with the release of Windows 95 and Windows NT 4.0.
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[edit] Overview
The program's interface showed a list of directories (later called folders) on the left side, and a list of the current directory's contents on the right side. File Manager allowed a user to create, rename, move, print, copy, search for, and delete files and directories, as well as to set permissions such as read-only or hidden, and to associate file types with programs. Also available were tools to label and format disks and to connect and disconnect from a network drive. On Windows NT systems it was also possible to set ACLs on files and folders on NTFS partitions through the shell32 security configuration dialog (also used by Explorer and other Windows file managers).
The Windows NT version of File Manager allows users to change file and directory permissions. This is not possible with Windows Explorer on Windows XP Home Edition as users are restricted to Simple File Sharing (unless running in Safe Mode).
From Windows 95 and Windows NT 4.0 onward, File Manager was superseded by Windows Explorer. However, the WINFILE.EXE program file was still included with Windows 95, Windows NT 4.0, Windows 98, and Windows Me.
Ian Ellison-Taylor was the shell developer on the Windows 3.1 team responsible for File Manager and Print Manager.[2]
[edit] Versions
[edit] 16-bit
The original version of File Manager was a 16 bit program that supported the 8.3 file names that were in use at the time.
It did not support the extended file names that became available in Windows 95 - including long file names and file names containing spaces. Instead, it would show these file names with a 'tilde' character "~" in the file
The 16-bit version had a Y2K issue due to lexicographic correlation between dates and the ASCII character set; colons and semicolons replaced what should have been '2000'.[3]
[edit] Windows NT
File Manager was completely rewritten as a 32-bit application for Windows NT. This new version correctly handled long file names as well as NTFS file systems. It was included with Windows NT 3.1, 3.5, 3.51, and 4.0. It is possible to run File Manager on Windows 2000 and Windows XP by extracting a copy of the WINFILE.EXE program file from a Windows NT 4.0 Installation, Windows NT 4.0 CD-ROM, or by downloading and expanding the files from Windows NT4.0 Service Pack 6.
File Manager cannot run natively under Windows Vista because it does not include COMMCTRL.DLL. However, it is possible to create a modified version that will run on Vista using instructions available here
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- ^ Microsoft (2006-03-07). "Windows Desktop Products History". Windows History. Microsoft. Retrieved on 2006-08-19.
- ^ Microsoft (2007-02-20). "Dr Sneath and Ian Ellison-Taylor: Windows History". Microsoft. Retrieved on 2007-03-10.
- ^ Microsoft (2006-08-22). "File Manager Shows Garbled Date for Year 2000 or Later". Microsoft Help and Support. Microsoft. Retrieved on 2006-08-18.
