Microsoft Making File Copying Better in Windows 8

powerful way to do the drag and drop.

Windows 8 File Copying

One of the great things about GUI operating systems is dealing with file management. While some of us from the old days became pretty good at shuffling files around via the command line, seeing graphical representations of files and dragging and dropping them made things much faster and easier.

Microsoft has changes planned for the way Windows 8 handles the copying and moving of files. Microsoft cites add-ons TeraCopy, FastCopy, and Copy Handler as software it has looked at for file copying. The company found that less than 0.45 percent of Windows 7 PCs are running such software, but still sees it as

"We aren’t aiming to match the feature sets of these add-ons. We expect that there will be a vibrant market for third-party add-ons for a long time," wrote Alex Simons, Microsoft's director of program management, in the Windows 8 Blog. "Our focus is on improving the experience of the person who is doing high-volume copying with Explorer today, who would like more control, more insight into what’s going on while copying, and a cleaner, more streamlined experience."

Ever get stuck copying more than one file, or a set of files, thus collectively dividing up the available transfer speed available? That's no problem if you're not in a hurry to have a certain job finish before the other ones, but for when it's a problem, you'll be thankful that Microsoft has added a pause feature.

Windows 8 will also have an expanded file action window, where you can see a graph of the transfer and other details.

Microsoft is also revamping its file conflict function, which will show up to aid a user when he or she is copying or moving files to a destination with already-existing filenames.

 

Check out the video above for a visual demo.