XP/Vista: Customize Windows Explorer with Additional Detail Rows

Contributed by ibe98765  
Tagged: Windows  

Power users commonly wander through Windows folders and files, often just to see what is there. When they find something, then they need to determine what it is. This is a recipe for doing this task while looking at many files inside Windows Exploxer. Excellent screenshot walking through the process of adding additional detail rows to the view in explorer.

When a file is found that looks either interesting or out-of-the-ordinary, you will usually right-click on the file name to bring up the properties window. Under the version tab you can find out the name of the company that created the file, the version number, the product name that the file is tied to and more (assuming the company populated this information). Of course, you can also enable a tool tip so that when you mouse over the file name, it will pop up to show you the same information about the file.

However, both of these methods are single threaded and you have to repeat the action for each file you want to investigate.

A better way to do this same task is to customize the details displayed in Windows Explorer. The advantage of this method is that by merely scrolling through a file list, you can easily display the information you want to see right in Explorer AND you can easily screen copy the information for multiple files.

Walk through directions:
1. Open Explorer
2. Right-Click the Title bar above the Detail Rows (Likely contains the text “Title” “Date modified” “Size” etc ) See screenshot below for details
3. Pick the categories you want displayed
4. Click OK

I’m not 100% sure on this, but I believe that once you’ve changed one folder, then inside Windows Explorer, you’ll need to go to the menu bar and click on Tools-Folder Options-View and then click the button “Apply to all folders”. Now your file window title bar modifications will look the same throughout Explorer.

Screenshot:
Here’s a screen shot showing you a visual guide on customizing the Explorer menu bar.