Steven Sinofsky, the President of the Windows Division at Microsoft, has been busy posting inside info about up coming Windows 8 on MSDN blog Building Windows 8. And this latest post which talks about the file management improvement is by far the most interesting and exciting info about Windows 8 I have ever seen.
Copying, moving, renaming, and deleting are far and away the most heavily used features within Windows Explorer, representing 50% of total command usage (based on Windows 7 telemetry data). For Windows 8, we want to make sure that using these core file management commands, which we collectively refer to as “copy jobs,” is a great experience.
How great can it be to a heavily used copy native experience without any 3rd party tools involved? Here are the goals:
- One place to manage all copy jobs: Create one unified experience for managing and monitoring ongoing copy operations.
- Clear and concise: Remove distractions and give people the key information they need.
- User in control: Put people in control of their copy operations.
First, a consolidated copy experience with one combined UI.
![image thumb65 - The Improved File Management in Windows 8 [Video]](https://www.nextofwindows.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/image66.png "The Improved File Management in Windows 8 [Video]")
Second, the long over-due pause, resume, and stop operations to each copy execution.
![image thumb66 - The Improved File Management in Windows 8 [Video]](https://www.nextofwindows.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/image67.png "The Improved File Management in Windows 8 [Video]")
Then, a detailed view with a real-time throughput graph. Note that each copy job shows the speed of data transfer, the transfer rate trend, and how much data left to transfer.
![image thumb67 - The Improved File Management in Windows 8 [Video]](https://www.nextofwindows.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/image68.png "The Improved File Management in Windows 8 [Video]")
And, the real-time throughput graph even displays how the speed of file transfer increases substantially when other copies are paused.
![image thumb68 - The Improved File Management in Windows 8 [Video]](https://www.nextofwindows.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/image69.png "The Improved File Management in Windows 8 [Video]")
What about the confusing Copying Conflict Resolution windows in Windows 7? This is also going to change in Windows 8 with a new design that provides a much more visible and actionable approach.
First, when conflicts are detected, a Replace & Skip Files dialog box will pop up giving you option of whether you want to replace, skip or more choices:
![image thumb70 - The Improved File Management in Windows 8 [Video]](https://www.nextofwindows.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/image71.png "The Improved File Management in Windows 8 [Video]")
If you go with more choices, which is the 3rd option down, the following window appears.
![image thumb71 - The Improved File Management in Windows 8 [Video]](https://www.nextofwindows.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/image72.png "The Improved File Management in Windows 8 [Video]")
And the question now whether it’s going to show all or just the first 50 or 100 files is still unknown.
Aren’t those the greatest improvements we’ve seen so far in Windows 8?
If you don’t see a video here or can’t play it, download it here: High quality MP4 | Low quality MP4
The Copying Conflict Resolution in Windows 7 is confusing? A few simple options, quick and easy. What we see here looks a lot more cumbersome.
Add what if there are 100 conflicts? Or 2000? Is it going to try to display them all first? And is it going to be a huge window, with the check boxes at the top and the Continue button at the bottom? So that we have to scroll all the way from the top to the bottom just to continue?
What you left out in your post is that there is actually a dialog that pops up first before the ‘Choose Files’ window shown above. And that stupid dialog DOES NOT include an option to copy and keep both files.
So now in Windows 8, you get a dialog box indicating there are conflicts, then you have to click the option to resolve the conflicts, which displays the ‘Choose Files’ window, then you have to click both of the check boxes at the top of the window, then you have to scroll down to the bottom of the window and click ‘Continue’, just to copy and keep both files.
The confusion part in Windows 7 is that sometimes it’s not that easy to tell which files are which. It always makes me to think triple times before making any decision. So from a consumer point of view, a better dialog window is needed.
Your point is very valid and thanks for pointing it out, Glenn. I have updated the post to include the left out first dialog box.
Cheers.