If you read my location you may understand why I am more expert than my IT experts in the office here, and I know little!
Apart from a screen print have any dopers an idea how I can copy the titles and relationships of the folder filing system out of Windows Explorer into, ideally, an Excel spreadsheet such that each folder name drops into a different cell. We are using Windows 2000 5.0.
For why? Well if it helps I am the new expat on the block here trying to get some order in chaos. Starting with getting the team to get our filing system into some sort of order - nuts and bolts first eh!
Well, they already have some sort of electronic filing system which want to use as a basis for all systems - paper et al. There are thousands of files in all. Hence the need to get the data out of WE into something where we can explore the options to re-sort it into something that makes sense in a new organisation structure.
Hopefully I do not need to find someone willing to retype all the folder and subfolder names. Please tell me I am missing an easy shortcut solution!!
I have absolute faith you will know the solution if there is one!
From a DOS prompt, dir /ad /s /b > folders.txt would create a simple list of folder names in the file folders.txt.
Or you could use the tree command, something like tree c:\ /a > tree.txt. You would then need to use a word processor or text editor to replace all those ‘|’, ‘’, ‘+’ and spaces with one symbol, preferably one not used in any folder names. With a bit of thought you could end up with one symbol per indent level. Then open tree.txt in Excel, using the chosen symbol as the only delimiter. That will get the folder names into appropriate columns.
Try going into the command prompt (Start/Run/“cmd”) and typing:
dir /ad /b /s > dirstructure.txt
This will produce a text file called “dirstructure.txt” that lists all of the directories on the system. You can import it into excel by loading it into Notepad and doing a search and replace on the “” character for the “,” character. You can then treat the file as a CSV document and import it into Excel in a tabular format.
If this isn’t quite what you’re after post back - it’s fairly trivial to write a script that can produce pretty much any kind of directory structure for you.
My ignorance might be showing here but I hesitate to do that.
For a start it is 26 GB large.
Not sure where I can put it without screwing something up.
“Messing around with it” is not the objective. I want to sort relevent subfolders which currently in different places and get them in logical order. Will be a iterative process but also want it to be a task I can share out not have to do all myself.
Perhaps I can usefully rephrase.
I just need to “cut and paste” the titles of each folder and subfolder into an Excel spreadsheet, get different parts of the team to “muck around” with the subjects which are there new responsibilities and then get one (trusted) soul to change the folders in WE.
I want then to use the final spreadsheet as the basis of a paper filing key - the ideal being that (down to a certain level of detail) the electronic and paper filing systems are identical.
I also need to share the filing key with other office locations - we do not have a WAN so Excel attachment of the output of this process in an email is the obvious low tech solution.
I think I need to just get the text of the folder titles out of WE - unless somebody has a more elegant solution.
No probs - I just thought that it was handy. I just did the same with my own departments file sys, although that was only 565 MB, it still had over 4,000 files. Only took me 8 hours to re-arrange.
Thank you Armilla - job done. Well, spreadsheet now exists and the real work starts.
This is just to provide the positive feedback that WYSIWYG if you follow your instructions - in case any other lurkers intend to use the same solution.
Plus Cecil may have a new native-Angolan member, my IT folks are asking how I found out the solution so quickly and are amazed to find there is a world where folks actually share thier knowledge.
Here the belief is still that knowledge is power. Lets see if the lesson rubs off…
I dunno. You can’t put everything on the GUI. Anyway, you can put it there yourself.
In my job I need to build deployment lists a lot, so I wrote a small batch file:
dir /b /s > c: emp_dirlist.txt
start notepad.exe c: emp_dirlist.txt
I called it GetDirListing.cmd and dropped it in the WINNT folder (but any folder that’s set up in the command prompt path will do). Then I made a small change to the registry:
Under HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Folder\shell I created a Key called “Filch Files” and a subkey underneath it called “command”. Under the “command” key I set the default value to be “GetDirListing.cmd”.
(The .REG file looks like:
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Folder\shell\Filch Files]
[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Folder\shell\Filch Files\command]
@="GetDirListing.cmd"
)
The upshot of all this is that whenever I right-click on a folder I get a “Filch Files” menu item and, when I click on it, I get a notepad window listing all the files and subfolders it contains.
