microsoft/winfile

Original Windows File Manager (winfile) with enhancements

Windows File Manager (WinFile)

The Windows File Manager lives again and runs as a native x86, x64 and arm64 desktop app on all currently supported version of Windows, including Windows 11. I welcome your thoughts, comments and suggestions.

There are two primary versions of the source code in the master branch:

1. original_plus tag: refers to the source for WinFile as of Windows NT4 with minimal changes so that it compiles with Visual Studio and runs on current Windows.

2. current master: actively developed branch that consists of enhancements and additions to WinFile.

I will consider bugs fixes and suggestions for minor changes to the master branch. Feel free to create a pull request or post issues as you see fit.

I will not be changing the original_plus sources nor creating other branches for other purposes. You are welcome to do that on your own.

Download The App

If you are running Windows 10, you can download the app from the store

If you just want to download the WinFile application without worrying about compiling from the source code, we have a number of pre-compiled versions available.

Please select the version which you would like to download.

• Chocolatey release

• Winget release: winget install "Windows File Manager"

• MSYS2 release

• Latest Release on Github (v10.3.0.0)

To see more release binaries, including of older versions, see the releases page.

History

The Windows File manager was originally released with Windows 3.0 in the early 1990s. You can read more about the history at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_File_Manager .

Change history

Highlights of changes in each release are in CHANGES.md.

What it looks like

Contributing

Contributor License Agreement

As mentioned above, this project welcomes contributions and suggestions. Most contributions require you to agree to a Contributor License Agreement (CLA) declaring that you have the right to, and actually do, grant us the rights to use your contribution. For details, visit https://cla.microsoft.com.

When you submit a pull request, a CLA-bot will automatically determine whether you need to provide a CLA and decorate the PR appropriately (e.g., label, comment). Simply follow the instructions provided by the bot. You will only need to do this once across all repos using our CLA.

This project has adopted the Microsoft Open Source Code of Conduct. For more information see the Code of Conduct FAQ or contact [email protected] with any additional questions or comments.

What Makes a Good Pull Request for WinFile?

If you are interested in contributing and/or suggesting changes to the actual application, you might find it helpful to read this post first.

License

Copyright (c) Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

Licensed under the MIT License.

winfile's Issues

Original build files

On Wine 3.4 the status bar doesn't seem to be rendered

Any chance we could have the original Makefiles as well as the VS solution?

I'm unable to build from a .sln and #9 will be challenging without Makefiles as well

Freezes when trying to go into a disconnected network drive

When cold starting on Win10 with multi monitors, starts basically invisible

Title says all.

Submitted pull request.

Two Panel Mode

Maybe someone could add a two panel mode (norton commander style) to minimize mouse use? I'm too busy and lazy to do it myself.

Some files still have a ^Z at the end

After a quick inspection, it looks like several files (for instance, src/lfn.h) still have an old DOS CTRL+Z 1A byte lingering around at their end.

progress bar ?

Maybe add progress bar or something to inform of actual state in copy/cut files. (or %)

Show files/folders with the Encrypted attribute in green

In Explorer, files and folders with the Encrypted attribute show up as green, as long as you have the "Show encrypted or compressed NTFS files in color" folder view option checked. No such behavior exists here currently, since Windows NT 4.0 was from before NTFS 3.0 (Windows 2000). It'd be nice to see this functionality here. Below are two screenshots showing the folder coloring in Explorer, then in Winfile.

npapi.h missing

Can you add npapi.h to the bundle please?
Thanks,
Larry

A couple of suggestions and a small nit to pick

Your effort is to be praised,

I've been using WinFile since it first came out, and still use it every day. Unfortunately it got broke in Vista and this guy figured out a fix for it: http://people.ee.ethz.ch/~davidsch/vistafm/

It was a bit fiddly to get it to work, but it did work under Vista, Win-7 and Win-10. But there were a couple of problems mainly dealing with permissions, and Winfile.ini not being saved every time. Specifically in the Windows32 directory, the ECT directory didn't show up in David's version. It shows up fine in yours. Another one was the WinEvt sub directory with the Event Logs. It didn't show up in Davids but shows up fine in yours. I'm sure there are others but it looks like your version solved all of the missing sub-directories.

The link given in the How to Geek article works: Visual C++ Redistributable for Visual Studio 2015 and you have the option of choosing a 32-Bit version or 64-Bit version. I chose the 64 bit version and got: The program can’t start because MSVCP140.dll is missing from your computer.

But when I installed the 32-bit version, the error message went away and File Manager started right up. I'm running Win-7 and the error message might not appear if you are using Win-10. But it might be a good idea to let How to Geek know that they should mention to download the 32 bit version.

Your version of File Manager worked flawlessly and as I used it, something was a bit different from the original version. I couldn't put my finger on it, and then I realized that it was how your version handled the display of the Directories and Sub-Directories. The original has a solid outline, and your version doesn't. It might have something to do with the newer libraries, dunno.

All in all, it's a welcome addition as far as I'm concerned.

Good job, well done.

Project files are wrong for 64-bit builds

I'd do a pull request but I don't have VS2015 installed here so I've been building with 2017 and 2017 toolchain and so things might break.

The release|x64 configuration has the wrong preprocessor defines (they're the 32-bit ones; debug|x64 has the correct 64-bit ones), and it's also missing the additional .lib inputs.

chocolatey installation

Are there any ideas about installation from chocolatey or Install-Package?

Linux port with wine

Please provide a make target for building this natively for Linux (e.g. Ubuntu 18.04 LTS or Debian 9 "Stretch") using Wine.

Does this build on NT 3.51 and/or (DOS-based) 3.1?

The primary way people are going to want to experience this is with period graphics/visual styling. That's primarily going to be DOS-based 3.1 and NT 3.51.

Mostly for the purposes of general documentation, I'm curious to find out how well this would cope with running on

• NT 3.51
• NT 3.1
• DOS-based 3.1
• DOS-based 3.11

and, if there are any issues, if anybody without much inside knowledge would be able to tackle them.

Help document

hi,
can we have the help document format updated to support the newer o.s's?

Default icon in the menu bar

In the beginning of the menu bar there is a default icon with seemingly no purpose.

Call HtmlHelp instead of WinHelp in the Help menu

HtmlHelp (.chm files) still works in all versions of Windows, unlike WinHelp (.hlp files). Switching to it is rather easy, but it requires include of htmlhelp.h and linking against htmlhelp.lib (both come with HTML Help Workshop 1.3). Not sure how acceptable that is in this case, though.

issues i see

hi,
here is the list of bugs i see from windows 7 pro 64 bit:
-menu items share a directory is dimmed when file is selected
-menu item view or set permissions is dimmed when file is selected

-under file drop down the compress... and uncompress seem to work but not in a way expected (i expected it to be compress to zip)

-under drop down Disk item,format disk is dimmed ( well folder labeled C:\ is selected (behavor unexpected but i guess this was used with floppy disks not hard drives)
--under drop down Disk item Share as and stop sharing is dimmed (unexpected, but i guess this is a deprecated pre windows smb sharing option)

overall a good prodect

Feature Request: Add "Start PowerShell..." to File Menu

This is great! I think this could really improve several of my workflows. I'd love to see a "Start PowerShell..." option added to the start menu.

"Format disk..." doesn't work

On Windows 10 x64, using the "Format disk..." option in the Disk menu results in an error message saying "File manager cannot obtain disk information. Make sure the disk is in the drive." .

I'm not sure what this is suppose to do (perhaps it was only meant to format floppies?), but it would be nice if it actually called the standard format disk dialog of Windows, like Explorer does.

Border/titlebar theme for sub-windows in Windows 10 looks wrong/old

This issue can be insta-closed by the maintainer, just a placeholder to indicate this is a known Windows 10 problem and can be voted on here: https://aka.ms/Bjiosw

Native VS-like Dark Theme Support [Live screenshot included]

Due to the flexibility of Windows 3.1 personalization control panel, I am able to re-color almost all standard Windows UI controls, including changing the color of highlights and shadows, allowing me to create a "flat", modern, dark theme. I used the UI colors of Blend for VS2017 and the highlight color of VS2017 to create a dark theme for Windows 3.1, which also applied to WinFile.

This screenshot is a live example (i.e. not photoshopped or concept art) showing WinFile sporting a dark theme. This can be used as reference to re-color the standard Windows components at the application level, which Windows 10 still supports.

Because WinFile uses native UI controls, it technically supports a dark theme color. And applications themselves can still apply their own color to these classic Windows UI components, including buttons, textboxes, etc (as long as they are not using a visual style, which WinFile isn't). So, it's not inconceivable that we would eventually be able to re-color the UI easily and without major modifications or re-skin to create the dark theme. The live screenshot is living proof that it works well with WinFile.

Makefile and MinGW support

A Makefile and (if possible) support for building with MinGW would be interesting.

Unable to view hidden or system files/folders

I am not seeing any option to turn this feature on. Windows Explorer is showing hidden files and folders.

In executable properties the product name is "Win7 DDK driver"

In executable properties the product name is "Windows (R) Win7 DDK driver"

The color of the folder edge and tree is grey instead of black

The color of the folder edge, "+" signs and the tree branches is grey instead of black

Original:
http://storage4.static.itmages.ru/i/17/0919/h_1505825396_3777912_92ff09bce8.png

SetWindowLong/GetWindowLong GWL_WNDPROC build error

Building x64 SetWindowLong/GetWindowLong should use GWLP_WNDPROC not GWL_WNDPROC .

1>wfgoto.cpp(591): error C2065: 'GWL_WNDPROC': undeclared identifier

Provide different versions through git branches

I think it would be helpful to provide the different versions through git branches.

Idea for further development:

• a git branch named "master" with the latest stable source code
• a git branch named "develop" or "dev" or similar with the latest unstable source code

Idea about the old code (archives):

• a git branch named "original" with the code from November 2007
• a git branch named "original_plus" with the code from November 2007 + fixes

Resize tiled windows when Winfile window is resized

It would be great if the MDI childs tiled like panels etc would automatically resize to fit the whole parent window when Winfile window is resized. Maybe implemented as an option.

Make "Start Bash Shell" feature configurable

The File Manager supports "Start Cmd Shell" and "Start PowerShell". Can we add "Start Bash Shell", if users have installed Bash on Windows?

Edit:

• Add "Start Bash Shell" (Done in #61)
• Make this feature configurable

Readme image attribution

The image in the readme is lifted from Wikipedia (Wikimedia Commons link), supplied without appropriate licence. (Just wanted to clear up the note “not sure who uploaded the image to Wikimedia”.)

The image was uploaded to Commons by user Cedar101 and a note on their talk page refers to a missing licence as well. The file was since updated to include the MIT licence.

The file uploaded to Wikimedia was lifted from a blog post about the source code release, which similarly has no attribution.

I’m sure there is a better way to list the image permissions 😄(e.g. https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/legal/intellectualproperty/permissions)

Crash with Access violation calling BagOValues->Sort()

[Inline Frame] Winfile.exe!std::basic_string<wchar_t,std::char_traits<wchar_t>,std::allocator<wchar_t> >::_Eos(unsigned int) Line 2219	C++
[Inline Frame] Winfile.exe!std::basic_string<wchar_t,std::char_traits<wchar_t>,std::allocator<wchar_t> >::_Tidy(bool) Line 2261	C++
[Inline Frame] Winfile.exe!std::basic_string<wchar_t,std::char_traits<wchar_t>,std::allocator<wchar_t> >::operator=(std::basic_string<wchar_t,std::char_traits<wchar_t>,std::allocator<wchar_t> > &&) Line 931	C++
[Inline Frame] Winfile.exe!std::pair<std::basic_string<wchar_t,std::char_traits<wchar_t>,std::allocator<wchar_t> >,tagDNODE *>::operator=(std::pair<std::basic_string<wchar_t,std::char_traits<wchar_t>,std::allocator<wchar_t> >,tagDNODE *> &&) Line 230	C++
Winfile.exe!std::_Pop_heap_hole_by_index<std::pair<std::basic_string<wchar_t,std::char_traits<wchar_t>,std::allocator<wchar_t> >,tagDNODE *> *,int,std::pair<std::basic_string<wchar_t,std::char_traits<wchar_t>,std::allocator<wchar_t> >,tagDNODE *>,std::less<void> >(std::pair<std::basic_string<wchar_t,std::char_traits<wchar_t>,std::allocator<wchar_t> >,tagDNODE *> * _First, int _Hole, int _Bottom, std::pair<std::basic_string<wchar_t,std::char_traits<wchar_t>,std::allocator<wchar_t> >,tagDNODE *> && _Val, std::less<void> & _Pred) Line 2049	C++
[Inline Frame] Winfile.exe!std::_Sort_unchecked(std::pair<std::basic_string<wchar_t,std::char_traits<wchar_t>,std::allocator<wchar_t> >,tagDNODE *> *) Line 2776	C++
[Inline Frame] Winfile.exe!std::sort(std::_Vector_iterator<std::_Vector_val<std::_Simple_types<std::pair<std::basic_string<wchar_t,std::char_traits<wchar_t>,std::allocator<wchar_t> >,tagDNODE *> > > > _Pred, std::_Vector_iterator<std::_Vector_val<std::_Simple_types<std::pair<std::basic_string<wchar_t,std::char_traits<wchar_t>,std::allocator<wchar_t> >,tagDNODE *> > > >) Line 2784	C++
[Inline Frame] Winfile.exe!std::sort(std::_Vector_iterator<std::_Vector_val<std::_Simple_types<std::pair<std::basic_string<wchar_t,std::char_traits<wchar_t>,std::allocator<wchar_t> >,tagDNODE *> > > >) Line 2791	C++

[Inline Frame] Winfile.exe!BagOValues<tagDNODE *>::Sort() Line 51 C++
Winfile.exe!BuildDirectoryTreeBagOValues(void * pv) Line 683 C++

thank you!

Hi,

I don't have any issues. I just wanted to thank you for publishing winfile!

(And I hope that progman will be also available for Win 10 one day)

Best regards,
Michal

can't open hidden/system/special folders?

maybe I'm missing something but I was not able to open or see for example my profile AppData, also Ctrl+G - C:\Users\myusername\AppData or Ctrl+G -> %AppData% isn't working, would be great if you could fix this.
As I've read junctions should be shown as such, it would be great if redirected special folders like "Documents" or "Pictures" would be shown as redirected, respectively it would be desirable to follow them (as long as they are local) in an easy way, like clicking or ctrl/alt-clicking them.

Add Visual Styles support

Following one of the following strategies:

https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/bb773175(v=vs.85).aspx

Request: Screenshot of what this looks like on recent Windows versions

I know it's going to look pretty dorky, but it would still be cool to get some idea of what to expect.

Disk Usage 100%

Disk usage for File Manager winfile.exe goes to 100% shortly after launching the application.

Security options gone, please return

One of the best things to use File Manager for, and I maintain a Win2003/XP VMs just for this issue, is to fix the sometimes ridiculously complex file/folder permissions issues found in Windows Vista/2008 and later builds. Since File Manager doesn't understand or respect inheritance I even saw Microsoft support engineers use it to fix broken permissions issues back in the day.

I vote for adding back the Security menu and its submenus from the last build of winfile.exe from NT 4.0 days. I'd love to be able to never have to boot a 2003/XP VM again for this purpose. Yes, I get it, there are other options, but NONE as direct and concise as using File Manager to fix the system that Microsoft never bothered to fix on its own.

Add UAC/User Account Control Support

Add support for UAC when attempting to modify files and folders that require administrator privileges.

Attempting to delete files or folders without the appropriate permissions for the current user brings up an 'Access is denied' dialog.

Add additional languages beyond English, Chinese, Hebrew, Japanese, Polish, German

Windows releases contained Winfile in multiple languages (such as Russian). This project currently has only English language version.

Create WinFile specific About box

Perhaps I'm off the mark on the intent, but the Help > About box shows winver but without user or org information (left in this). Super cool otherwise though!

WinRT Desktop environment build

Please compile WinRT build. There is VS2011beta with ARM dlls and VS2012 to compile it.
I miss any 2 window file manager for my Win8.1RT still.

Drag in works; out not so much

Hi Craig :-)

Dragging & dropping from the Win10 shell (or other apps) INTO WinFile works fine.

But I get the universal-no cursor when trying to D&D from WinFile elsewhere.

Copy/Paste works both ways.

I couldn't find any drop-source code (e.g. no impl of IDropSource). So I'm guessing you didn't get to this side of the equation?

Keyboad shortcuts broken

In all previous versions of winfile.exe, CTRL-C, CTRL-D, CTRL-E, CTRL-F, etc... would take you to that drive letter. Now they appear to be Office-style shortcuts where, for example, CTRL-F is a search dialog. Why would these be changed? I just tested this on an NT 4.0 VM and confirmed that the CTRL-x combinations do work as I remembered.

Path length limit of (I think) 260 characters

I really like winfile due to it's responsiveness.
Is there any chance to get rid of the fixed max length of 260 characters for the path length?
If so, then winfile would be truly superior to Windows Explorer, which has the same problem.

uwp version?

with broadfileaccess now available on uwp platform of windows 10 can we have a FileManager version on uwp as well?

Where are the tests?

Or did someone really write all this without any test coverage?

下一次开源……IE

macOS port?

Has anyone talked about making a macOS port of this?

Is winfile.rc broken?

I can't open it in any plain text editor.

Add high DPI support for Windows 10