Configuration - Operation                            Back

 

Field Description

 

Main program

Allow only 1 copy of Total Commander at a time

With this option Total Commander can only be started once. If you try to start a second copy of Total Commander (e.g. by Program Manager/Start menu), the first copy is activated instead.

Move icon to system tray when minimized (32 bit version)

When Total Commander is minimized, the icon is removed from the normal task bar. Instead, an icon is inserted in the small system area in the task bar, near the clock. A click on this icon brings Total Commander back into the foreground.

Important: You can switch to Total Commander with ALT+TAB even if it's shown in the system tray (which is normally NOT possible). However, under WinNT you need to press ENTER after releasing the ALT key in order to restore Total Commander.

Always go to the root of a drive when changing drives

When this option isn't checked, Total Commander will go to the last used directory of a drive when changing drives. If it's checked, Total Commander will always go to to the root.

Open files and directories with a single click

Allows to open files and directories with a single click instead of a double click. Only experienced users should use this option, because otherwise files could be opened by mistake.

Select only the file name when renaming (not the extension)

This option determines which part of the file name is selected when pressing Shift+F6. If checked, only the name part without the extension is selected, otherwise the entire file name is selected. Press Shift+F6 repeatedly to switch between these two selections.

Auto-complete paths When a full path (with drive letter or server name) is entered, look for paths starting with the typed letters, and offer them in a dropdown listbox

Auto-append suggested name

When a full path (with drive letter or server name) is entered, look for paths starting with the typed letters, and offer the first match within the edit box. You can then switch through the available paths with the up/down arrows, and select one with right arrow. If enabled, you can also switch through them with TAB and select one with Ctrl+Space.

 

Mouse selection mode: Choose between right and left mouse button to select files:

Use right mouse button To select files, just hold down the right mouse button and drag your mouse cursor over the files you want to select.

Left mouse button The mouse works as in file manager. Look in your Windows manual for an explanation of how it works.

 

Selection (with Gray +)

Select files only When pressing Gray +, CTRL+Gray +, or Gray *, only files and no directories are selected.

Also select directories Directories can also be selected with the Gray keys (numeric keypad)

 

NTFS daylight saving correction

Ignore 1 hour time delay

This option lets Total Commander ignore this 1 hour difference in the time stamp in 'Synchronize dirs' and other compare functions.

Reason: When using Windows NT, 2000 or XP, it's possible to use two file systems, FAT32 or NTFS. While FAT32 stores the local time of files, NTFS stores the GMT (English standard time) of the files. When going from Summer (daylight saving) time to Winter (normal) time, the local timestamps on FAT32 will remain the same, while files on NTFS drives will have the time changed by 1 hour because the time zone difference to GMT changes by one hour. Therefore files on FAT32 and NTFS drives which had identical times before the time change will suddenly be different. Thanks to this function, the files can still be detected as identical.

 

Save on exit

Directories When Total Commander is closed, the directories shown in the left and right panel will be saved. This option will also save folder tabs when they are enabled.

Panels (brief/full/tree, etc.)

When Total Commander is closed, the display type for the left and right panel will be saved. This includes Brief / Full / Tree, All files / Programs /Custom, and the sort order. If this feature is not chosen, the settings which were last saved are taken when Total Commander starts (or the default settings if nothing was saved before).

Old command lines When Total Commander is closed, the command lines in the command line combobox will be saved in wincmd.ini.

Directory history Remember the history of visited directories also between sessions. Virtual folders can only be saved if there exists a unique string in the form ::{number} to represent them.

 

Win95/NT specific

Use long filenames (recommended)

This option has been moved to the page Display.

 

Calculate space occupied by subdirectories

When selecting with the space bar

This option causes Total Commander to sum up the sizes of all files contained in a subdirectory when this directory is selected with SPACEBAR. This size is then shown (in mode "full") instead of <DIR> after the directory name.

Before copying/deleting

This option causes Total Commander to count the size of all files/directories selected before copying these files. This allows Total Commander to show a second percentage bar (overall complete).

 

FS-Plugins Allows the installation of file system plugins. You can find them on www.ghisler.com in the addons section. File system plugins allow to access file systems or similar devices or systems, e.g. a PocketPC, a Linux partition, or a remote server. Installed file system plugins appear in Network Neighborhood as separate subdirectories.

 

File comments

Preferred type: Allows to choose the preferred comment file type, descript.ion or files.bbs. The former file format has the advantage to work flawlessly also with long file names, but only allows single line comments without line breaks. The latter only works with the short DOS file names, but supports multi-line comments. It is recommended to use the descript.ion format, except if you are managing a BBS (bulletin board system) which uses files.bbs.

DOS charset This setting only affects descript.ion files. If checked, Total Commander will use the DOS character set when saving accented characters, otherwise the Windows charset. Reason: The descript.ion format was originally developed for the program 4dos, which uses the dos charset. Unfortunately newer programs like Acdsee ignore this standard and use the Windows charset. Therefore it's recommended to also use the Windows charset, except if you use 4dos or 4nt yourself.

files.bbs files will always use the dos character set to store descriptions.

Copy comments with files

Also copies any comments when copying the corresponding files. This also works with subdirectories. If this option is checked, comment files themselves will NOT be copied if they already exist in the target directory.

Read from both If this option is checked and no comment file of the preferred type exists, Total Commander will also look for a file of the other type. This is useful if e.g. descript.ion is set as the preferred type, but the user receives files in files.bbs format. When a file commented like this is copied, the comment will be converted automatically to the preferred format and stored in the comment file of the preferred type.