FOLDER SIZE REPORTING

We’ve reached a major milestone in the development of Duplicate File Detective v2.0, and we’re now actively looking for BETA testers.

If you’re familiar with software BETA programs and are interested in trying out DFD v2.0, please email me directly and I’ll send you the download link. And please – we need people that are going to put this release through its paces and report back to us with their thoughts / impressions. If you don’t have the time or inclination to do this, it’s best that you wait for the public release (hopefully only a few weeks away).

So, what’s new and improved in Duplicate File Detective v2.0? Well, that’s a looooong list – but here’s a sampling:

• Image preview (docking) window
• Numerous extensions to smart marking system, including pattern matching
• Byte-for-byte duplicate file content comparison
• Numerous new duplicate file detail report columns
• Extensive user interface improvements
• Major performance enhancements, including multi-threaded file hashing
• MS Vista friendly installer, application file storage, etc.
• Improvements to data export capabilities
• Much more

We’re hoping to move fairly quickly through the BETA testing period, so please contact me soon if you’re interested.

Today we’re releasing FolderSizes v4.1, an update with a sprinkling of new feature goodness and numerous performance optimizations. There are also a few minor bug fixes thrown in for good measure.

One of the new v4.1 features is something that I’ve actually been thinking about for a while now – a File Extension Researcher tool. As you’re probably aware, there is no central authority for file extensions, and it can sometimes be difficult to track down the source of file extensions that you encounter. Well, the FolderSizes v4.1 File Extension Researcher is designed to help.

As you can see from the first screen shot, the File Extension Researcher allows you to enter a file extension (e.g. “.pdf”, “.dat”, etc.) and provides two pieces of information in return. First, it shows the Windows shell file association, which largely controls how Windows itself responds to the extension. But for many extensions, Windows has no shell association whatsoever, and the second piece of information – a general listing of potential application matches – can help in those cases.

Additionally, you can click the Research Online button, which will launch your default web browser and pull up additional details on the extension in question. Currently, the source for this additional information is FILExt.com – an excellent website dedicated to this task.

You can click the View All Extensions button to see a complete listing of all the file extensions that FolderSizes knows about (over 23 thousand of them!). To keep things manageable, the extension browser window groups the extensions by leading alpha character, number, or symbol.

As an added convenience, the new File Extension Researcher can be launched by right-clicking any file listed anywhere within FolderSizes 4.1 (as long as the file has an extension).

There are lots of other goodies in the new FolderSizes v4.1 release (see release notes on the download page). This just happens to be one of my favorites. 🙂

Key Metric Software is proud to announce a major update to its powerful, network-aware disk space management software – FolderSizes 4.0.

This new release adds a wealth of new capabilities and improvements. Here’s a partial list:

In addition to these improvements and new features, FolderSizes 4.0 contains dozens of smaller enhancements that work to greatly improve overall robustness and usability. Nearly every aspect of the application, from the low-level file system scanning engine to the rendering of graph bars, has been tweaked and optimized.

Note that FolderSizes 4.0 installs (and is licensed) separately from existing versions of the application. This allows current FolderSizes users to fully evaluate the new version before deciding whether or not they wish to upgrade (special upgrade pricing is available) – without disturbing their existing product installations.

Download the new FolderSizes 4.0 release now, and try it for yourself.

Some Microsoft Office applications will create temporary files comprised of eight alphanumeric characters without a filename extension. Typically these are cleaned up by the application automatically, but various issues (such as network connectivity interruptions or anti-virus software poking its head in) can cause such files to be orphaned.

Isolating these types of temporary files for cleanup can be tricky. But the flexible FolderSizes search facility can do it with ease. Just click the Search button in the main FolderSizes application window, and select the FileName matching tab. Enable regular expression mode and enter the following pattern:

(\a\a\a\a\a\a\a\a)!.

The expression above matches exactly 8 alphanumeric characters with no extension, which is what many MS Office titles name certain temp files.

With FolderSizes, it’s also easy to find these files within a specific date range, size range, or even search by file owner.

We’re fortunate enough to get a lot of really positive feedback from the users of our software products. Today I received an email from Keith S. from Duncanville, TX. He had the following to say about FolderSizes (our disk space management software):