Replacement for Windows Explorer?

Question

I have been raised on Norton Commander so I could never really get too comfortable with the plain Explorer.

What is your favourite explorer tool and did you completely replace Windows Explorer with it?

Answer 1

You must love Total Commander.

It has similar key mappings with Norton Commander, a lot of useful features, it's fast, and has plenty of addons.

Answer 2

I just use Windows Explorer. I see no reason to replace it on Vista and 7. It would be like switching from /bin/bash to /bin/zsh on Linux/Unix. Sure, something else may be better, but its available everywhere, and I don't see any reason to devote cycles to learning subtle nuances of something new that only may increase my productivity.

Answer 3

QTTabBar - an addon for Windows Explorer which enables tabs and a lot of other useful options.

I don't like using anything but Windows Explorer, because when I use another machine, it is all different. It's better to customize a little - less of a shock that way.

For my own machine, this works beautifully and speeds up things a lot.

Answer 4

If you liked Norton Commander, you should have a look at Far Manager, from the creators of WinRAR. It's free, open source, and it has x86 and x64 versions.

Answer 5

FreeCommander

Answer 6

I quite like xyplorer.

Pros:

• Very fast, extensive and user friendly search functionality
• Very good "favorite directories" features
• Remembers a lot of "recentlty used" things. For example, for every directory it keeps track of your last selection. I learned this is very handy.
• Very customizeable
• Has multi tabs
• Very fast folder size calculation
• Timestamps can be expressed as age (for example "3 days old" ). This is much more useful than something like "11/09/2009 12:23".

Cons:

• Not free

Answer 7

Directory Opus

A great file manager made to replace Windows Explorer. The reason why I like it so much is that:

• Built-In Preview Pane (Windows Vista+ has that)
• Dual-Pane View
• Highly Customizable
• Favorites
• FTP/SFTP/FTP-SSH support
• Text Thumbnails
• Custom Key Shortcuts
• Extensive use of keyboard shortcuts
• and much more...

Answer 8

I agree with Ehtyar. Directory Opus is great - Dual Vertical or Horizontal views, great image viewer and you can use it as a ftp client as well

Answer 9

heheh I use the command line. It's pretty good.

cd C:\someplace; 
copy file target
erase file
rename filename

In UNIX/Linux gets even better :)

Answer 10

When I used to use Windows I was quite a fan of xplorer2.

There is a lite version that's free for non-commercial use, and the pro version adds powerful search feature (Omni-Finder)

Answer 11

Teracopy is a great filecopy utility that integrates with windows explorer and supports pausing / continue functionality. When making multiple copy sessions to the same destination, it queues up instead of starting multiple copies, thus maintaining the speed. Integrates seamlessly into Windows Explorer-shell. It's also fast.

Also supports integration with Total Commander and Directory Opus

Answer 12

I've just started using Q-Dir. Very flexible layout and quick to load too. Don't be put off by the web site (which looks a bit crazy!).

Answer 13

Not free but very mature! SpeedCommander

Answer 14

I've used CubicExplorer quite often. It's free, tabbed, and very customizable.

Answer 15

This one is very poorly known but for me it's the best: Altap Salamander

Answer 16

Mucommander

muCommander is a lightweight, cross-platform file manager featuring a Norton Commander style interface and running on any operating system with Java support (Mac OS X, Windows, Linux, *BSD, Solaris...).

I'm not huge into the Nortan Commander paradigm, but this program is useful enough that I keep it my machines for file transfers, viewing hidden files that I don't want to show in explorer/finder. Did I mention you can use it on Windows and Mac?

It is also open source (GPL).

Answer 17

Without a doubt it is Xplorer2.

Xplorer² allows you to browse more than one folder at a time, using tabs and dual panes. Sorting out and copying files becomes a breeze. You can navigate your shell namespace quickly using favorites, clickable paths (breadcrumbs), easy access to root folders, a tree and a bookmark pane (drop box) etc. You can even save and restore folder groups whenever your workflow deems necessary.

Answer 18

Explorer++ is a free multi-tab file manager.

Features:

• With the option to save to the registry or a configuration file, Explorer++ is portable.
• Tabbed browsing for easy management of multiple folders.
• Display window shows previews of files as they are selected.
• Easy-to-remember keyboard shortcuts for quick navigation.
• Customizable user interface.
• Full drag-and-drop support with other applications, including Windows Explorer.
• Advanced file operations such as merging and splitting supported.

Answer 19

Total Commander all the way. I've been using this software since the good old days of Windows 3.x (it was known as Windows Commander back then).

If you're looking for a conventional Explorer replacement, then I recommend UltraExplorer.

Answer 20

DirectoryOpus is a great (if a little pricey) choice.

Ehtyar.

Answer 21

How about bash via Cygwin?

Answer 22

Window's command line, with Cygwin's \bin in my PATH, and a few batch files and c++ programs is my preferred method. I'll never be slower than clicking if I know my filesystem, and 90% of the time, I know what I'm going to find.

Answer 23

The old Windows file manager ported to 2000/XP/2003/Vista/2008/7 for old schoolers that refuse to give it up.

http://www.mdgx.com/bin.htm#FM

Answer 24

Dired is a "directory editor" that comes with GNU Emacs which is available for Windows.

Answer 25

The Finder is a satisfying replacement :-)