# Copying files in Windows **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [January 13, 2001, 2:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/copying-files-in-windows/49856 "2001-01-13T14:54:24Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Mousseduck](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ecc23a/32.png) [@Mousseduck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mousseduck)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2001, 2:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/copying-files-in-windows/49856/1 "2001-01-13T14:54:24Z")
How do you copy multiple files using Windows? I originally wanted to copy all files in a directory of a certain type. They weren’t listed in order in Windows Explorer and I didn’t want to highlight each block and copy each individually. I wanted to do them all at once, so I used command prompt. But there has to be a way to do it in Windows. Does anyone know how? I have another question relating to Windows. I was trying to use the Find command in the Help section, and it came up with error 117. Unable to display Find tab. What does that mean? Thank you in advance for your help. ---
**Author:** ![evilhanz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ba8739/32.png) [@evilhanz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/evilhanz)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2001, 3:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/copying-files-in-windows/49856/2 "2001-01-13T15:17:27Z")
About point one … Using Windows Explorer, Click on the View menu, and ensure that the “details” option is selected. In the pane displaying your list of files, there are several column headers. Click on the column called “type”. Your files will now be listed according to their registered file type or extension. Left click on the first file you want to copy. While holding down the Shift key, left-click on the last file. All of the files to be moved should now be highlighted. Now, RIGHT-click on this group of files and drag them to the destination folder. When you let go of the mouse button, a small menu will appear with several options. Select “copy”. It sounds a lot more complicated to describe than it is to practice. Try it. About point two, I dunno 🙂 Windows Help is pretty useless anyway. Visit [msdn.microsoft.com](http://msdn.microsoft.com) instead. ---
**Author:** ![vandal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/858c86/32.png) [@vandal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/vandal)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2001, 3:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/copying-files-in-windows/49856/3 "2001-01-13T15:24:49Z")
As for copying files within Windows… Go into your desired directory, click on _View_, then click _Arrange Icons_, then click _By Type_. That’ll arrange all identical file extensions within that directory into a cluster, in alphabetical order (so, all \*.avi’s would be first, then any \*.bmp’s, then \*.cab’s, etc.). Now, say you had 10 \*.bmp’s in there that you wanted to copy. There are actually several ways you can do this. I’ll tell you the two that seem to be the easiest for me. I either highlight that block of \*.bmp’s, then press \ + C simultaneously, then go into the directory I want to copy them to, and press \ + V simultanously. Or, instead of the highlighting way, I’ll individually click on multiple files while holding down the \ key. Once I have all the files I want highlighted, I’ll do the same \ + C / \ + V thing. I’ll do this when I only have a couple files I want to copy, and I’m too lazy to use the ‘arrange icons by type’ feature. ---
**Author:** ![Dani\_Filth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/f07891/32.png) [@Dani\_Filth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dani_Filth)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2001, 3:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/copying-files-in-windows/49856/4 "2001-01-13T15:38:59Z")
Ok, what they said will definitely work, but here are a couple of other ways to copy files… 1. If you want to copy EVERYTHING in a folder, open the folder up, and on the top of the window (in the menu, you know, file, edit, view, etc…) click edit, and on that menu click select all. Then, all the files and folders in that folder will be highlighted. 2. Also, you can hold down your left mouse button (while not pointing at a file) and move it. You will notice a little dotted box being drawn (try this on the desktop if you like), not unlike when you draw a square in a paint program. You can just stretch the box over what you want, and it will select the multiple files. And by the way, it seems a lot of people don’t know this, but here is some really good advice… you can drag files and folders with the right mouse button too! Drag the files just like you would with your left mouse button. When you release it, a little menu will pop up with the option to move the files, copy the files, or create shortcuts to the files. Left click on whatever you want, and it will do it! This is good because sometimes when you drag a file you want to MOVE it, and it creates a shortcut instead. Then you delete the original file, and what you end up with is a shortcut to nothing (yeah, i used to work tech support for Gateway and Microsoft, and this issue came up a lot). As for the issue with the find tab, i don’t really know. I looked through microshaft’s support stuff (knowledge base, whatever) for you, but i couldn’t seem to find it. Perhaps the help file itself is corrupted. Maybe reinstalling the help files would fix it… Hope all this helps! 🙂 -Dani ---
**Author:** ![Mousseduck](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ecc23a/32.png) [@Mousseduck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mousseduck)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2001, 3:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/copying-files-in-windows/49856/5 "2001-01-13T15:41:15Z")
Thanks for your help, \*\* evilhanz \*\* and \*\* vandal \*\*. I never really bothered to check to see how to arrange files in Windows Explorer. I actually prefer to use DOS prompt, but Microsoft are taking all the decent commands out of it, so I guess I should learn to use Windows properly. ---
**Author:** ![Dani\_Filth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/f07891/32.png) [@Dani\_Filth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dani_Filth)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2001, 3:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/copying-files-in-windows/49856/6 "2001-01-13T15:46:49Z")
Um, ok, you’re welcome ☹ -Dani ---
**Author:** ![vandal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/858c86/32.png) [@vandal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/vandal)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2001, 3:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/copying-files-in-windows/49856/7 "2001-01-13T15:54:40Z")
Dani, don’t feel left out. I think Mousseduck posted the thank you before you left your post. ---
**Author:** ![zub](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/a6a055/32.png) [@zub](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zub)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2001, 3:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/copying-files-in-windows/49856/8 "2001-01-13T15:56:47Z")
first of all i presume that ur new to computers the solution is quite simple open the directory using “my computer” then if u want to select all the files, click edit - select all then either press the copy button or right click and click copy now this is done, the next thing for u to do is to paste the files wherever u want!!simple as for the help problem probably some of ur help files are missing ---
**Author:** ![mdf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/dbc845/32.png) [@mdf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mdf)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2001, 5:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/copying-files-in-windows/49856/9 "2001-01-13T17:46:43Z")
As noted above, sort by file type in the Win Explorer view (really alphabetically by filename extension), or you can Ctrl-left click on each file you want to select. Useful if the files don’t have the same extension. ---
**Author:** ![aramis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e68b1a/32.png) [@aramis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aramis)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2001, 8:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/copying-files-in-windows/49856/10 "2001-01-13T20:17:21Z")
There are a few of other, lesser known, ways to select multiple, contiguous files in Windows Explorer. For non-contiguous ones, use Cntrl-left click as explained by other posters. Pressing Cntrl-A will select all the files in the directory being viewed. This also works in most other selection contexts as well – in a document, it selects everything. Put the mouse cursor anywhere to the right of the list of file names. Then left click and drag. You’ll get a selection box – or lasso – that you can use to round up a set of files. After using the mouse to select one file, hold the shift key down and press the up or down arrows. ---
**Author:** ![Mousseduck](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ecc23a/32.png) [@Mousseduck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mousseduck)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2001, 4:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/copying-files-in-windows/49856/11 "2001-01-14T04:23:42Z")
Sorry \*\* Dani Filth \*\* I must have been typing my reply when you posted. Thank you to everyone for helping me. I am not really new at using Windows, I just have never needed to copy files that are not listed in order before. Now I’ll just play around and see which method I like best.