support other languages like korean or etc...

Thanks to reghacker #40!
Your remarks prevented me from having a very bad day.
Sure enough after uninstalling with build in uninstall option, the complete Run part in the registry was gone!
Reason why I wanted to get rid of “Handy Folders” was, IE was behaving funky.

Anyway, a thank you to the Give Away of The Day team for your daily effort in providing us with free software.
But, there is always a but, please review your offerings before everybody's machine is in a mess. The idea behind your service is that the developers get inputs about his/her codes. In no way can they expect us to find solutions for their sloppy jobs! Not everybody is a computer freak and can solve problems like this with a smile, for those with “normal” knowledge, it is a disaster ending up with a corrupted machine.
Btw, I'm using XP Pro SP3

works on xp - very interesting program - seems like contacting program support hompage and asking while problems on vista might lead working solution???

Never use anything that alters explorer in any way. It's just not a good idea, IMO. Look at all the various hassles these people encountered!

Fubar, about the Greeting Card Builder software, i have posted the following reply to you, in case you are reading it here:

=====================================================================
#98 - Fubar,

If you're reading this, when one uses the share feature and does an email of the card made, what it does is it attach a jpeg attachment to the email.

What I did was click on the jpeg attachment and opened in FastStone Viewer as well as Irfanview. But it only shows the first page of the card.

I know that Irfanview can view multi-page tiff, but for jpeg, it seems like it cannot. But so far, I have not come across a multi-page jpeg before.

Try the sharing function if you still have the software installed.

I have more than one drive and it was often hard to determine which drive I was on at any time. Now with the My Handy Folders toolbar, I can instantly tell which drive I am on. If that is the ONLY thing that I gwt from this app, it will have been worth it.

#87 - Fubar,

Thanks. Your expertise and warnings are always welcome and trusted.

I followed the instructions which came with the download, however I find the activation did not work; or the intent was to place a 15 day limitation on the 'give away'. Not that impressive a product so I deleted it. If there is to be a limitation to the give away of the day it should state it up front.

#84, Thom, I use Blue Project SysTracer Pro. It's commercial, but a home license is available. For me, it was worth the price for the performance and features. Some freeware options include Regshot (not the Regshot clones which use the Regshot name, they don't work) and InstallWatch Pro. However, those have more bugs, a lot fewer features, you can't get a full trace from Regshot on Vista, a more-or-less full trace on XP is best accomplished by a command file which lets it run with higher privileges, and I couldn't get InstallWatch Pro to work on Vista, and when it briefly did, it was excruciatingly slow. Full traces can show vast differences due to Windows housekeeping and other activity. I can't help you with that, experience and knowledge are required to know what's relevant and what isn't. I'm good at scanning thousands (or many tens of thousands for commercial apps) of changes quickly and spotting what's relevant.

#79, Lu Hulu, I recommend Microsoft Sysinternal AutoRuns. The Explorer tab will list shell extensions (most have ShellEx in the key name), and it's generally pretty clear about what product or company they belong to. You have to reboot when you make changes. Shell extensions should be safe to disable, some other things like drivers and services could keep Windows from booting. AutoRuns is like Regedit, it's always "live", i.e., changes are effectively saved when you make them, so pay attention to what you're doing. I'll also post a comment for you in yesterday's offering, Greeting Card Builder.

#85, eli, after uninstalling Handy Folders and noting the damage, I tried using the Last Known Good Configuration, but in typical Windows fashion, it didn't use the previous-boot configuration. That's why I use SysTracer Pro, it lets me back up the entire registry and browse and export from it just like Regedit, so I simply exported and restored the relevant Run entries from just before Handy Folders installation (SysTracer can also export selected changes made or selected changes required to restore). I also cleaned up some other garbage Handy Folders left in the registry (the phone number and Messenger related classes, which concern me).

#58, justpassingby, that's clever, but in most cases, one can simply boot in Safe mode (some things uninstall easier from Safe mode, some things won't uninstall from Safe mode). While System Restore is useful when it works, it often doesn't. I can't use it, as some software permanently broke my Vista System Restore, and I'd have to reinstall Vista to fix it, which I was going to do a long time ago, but now I'm just going to do a clean install of Windows 7 in a few months when it's released (I placed a half-price pre-order). The proper procedure for doing a System Restore is to uninstall all software installed since the Restore Point, do the Restore, then reinstall any desired software which was affected. That's why it's best to set a Restore Point before every software installation, and to quickly determine whether the software is going to cause problems, as using old System Restore Points can cause you grief. System Restore Points are automatically set if the computer is left running for extended periods, on driver installations, and on Microsoft Installer installations. For most other stuff, you need to set Restore Points manually.

#26, janet, regarding AnVir, the key thing is that you're using XP. On Vista with UAC, at least on my PC, the tray icons display tracked programs but not folders, although AnVir is actually tracking folders, since it works correctly when it's available in file open/save dialog boxes.

This is very similar to an older free util called FolderView, which is, IMO, even better than Handy Folders.

#76, Lu Hulu, but, as per Fubar's case, if this were to apply, he uninstalled all the folders, hopefully, then, the Restore point having been in effect, hopefully, the Registry would be recovered as in its original state, hopefully...I don't want to find out...take your precautionary word for it.

@Fubar
What program do you use to show when a registry file has been deleted like that? I would have never known such a thing had you not said something. What program is recommended? Thanks.

HELP! I installed this thing early this morning because I didn't think I'd have another chance later. I SHOULD have waited! Can anyone help me to uninstall it? Thanks!

Be aware that the program "Filebox Extender" which was recommended by a few different people here, while being a great little program, it states on the Hyperionics web page that they are no longer supporting or developing it. Just letting people know since I always like to know whether or not an application is being actively developed and supported.

Filebox eXtender is a nifty software that works 99% most the time except for some applications that apparently do not allow access to Filebox eXtender because it has its own file explorer built into the software.

Another thing I notice about Filebox eXtender is that sometimes, when you try to create a new folder, it is created but it is never shown. In other words, you can't open sub-folders sometimes.

On today's Giveaway, I think it serves the function of organizing your shortcuts but like all of these softwares, shortcuts do not work if one keeps creating and deleting and moving the files around constantly. For remote drives and USB, windows allocate dynamic drives letters. Not sure how this Giveaway overcomes that.

#72 - eli,

Restore points do not erase any folders created by the installation even after re-setting to prior to its installation.

#52 - Seth,

Can you help me here? I have installed ShellExView to enable and disable various extensions to test out if any of them is screwing up my right click access getting too slow.

However, can you teach me how ShellExView identifies conflicting shell enhancements?

One thing about ShellExView is that after disabling an exntension and then on enabling it again, my Firewall will prompt me if I allow the extension to run on startup.

Now, my question is how do I know whether to allow a certain extension to run on startup because the extensions are named like Greek to me. Not only for me, most will not know what extension refers to what program, because the naming of extensions is a garbage string of silly characters.

Thanks.

#43 and everybody else, sorry so late...funny thing, my XP sp2 always does a Restore point lately before the install...if yours did before today's, just do a Restore and the install never occurred.

Installs and activates easily on Win 7 x64. It works as it says, causes no problems of any kind, and with 1.5 tet. of storage across 3 hd's this is a efficient way of getting to where I need to go quickly. On the freeware side, I've used Right Start Menu for many years. You can add folders, website address, ftp sites, or about anything you want a quick link to. RSM does not integrate into anything--it justs sits by the clock. HF does have a lot more integration options, has an easy interface, and is much easier to add folders to, but is limited to just folders.

KEEPS CRASHING EXPLORER WHEN USED WITH VISTA BASIC 86??? KEEPS SAYING EXPLORER STOPPED ???

Thanks to # 14 & others for the warning. I crashed my computer before with a program from this publisher. I'm no computer wiz and rely on the honest critique of others.

This program I could not activate it , I installed it but could find no place to put the name giveawayoftheday and then the registeration code numbers in it. This is about the fourth program I could not register

I think Resort Labs owes us: (1) an explanation of Handy Folders' behavior in deleting registry keys/values in HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run (as discovered by Fubar) and (2) an explanation of how to safely remove Handy Folders without damage to the registry and (3) an appology for causing major disruption to so many systems.

In final probably the best solutios for everyone that don't make problems are:Free Comander portable and Folder Guide in case than we have problems with explorer and don't know how to solve this.Also this is good for me ,but not for all.

I have been playing with this program a bit with Vista 64-bit and, while it installed perfectly, it has one major flaw in my experience. Any time I try to "right-click" on a folder in the configure menu, there is an error "Access Violation". Now, those folders weren't meant to be right-clicked on but I'm so used to using right-click that I mistakenly did it. The issue is, it should be set up to ignore right clicks rather than having that action practically crashing the app when one does so. Not a good sign at all and it worries me to keep something like this running on my machine.
I love the functionality and the simplicity of the app but this is a serious problem, especially when those errors can be indicative of memory leaks and other possibly dangerous maladies.
For anyone who uses this and has that Access Violation error, I would suggest using the "quit" option because "continue" may leave the app running in a bad state. Don't want to leave it running if it's causing a memory leak, for sure.

I tried dozens of these programs, and never found anything more efficient and unobtrusive as the free small Executor program. Quick shortcut to open a small window and just need a couple of letters to type in to open anything you want, folders, files, programs, URLs...
http://www.executor.dk/

Hi All,
Installed and tried this offering, no advantage to Shelless I use in a previous offering (which overrides explorer anyway), uninstalled via their uninstaller and after reading comments,checked regedit, No Change!
Except a second "run" file (disabled by Anvir) with Handy Folders included?
HMMM,,,,,

Maybe Scotty and Anvir, AVG, were not in the "run" in the first place!

Anyway all seems well, and I hope GOTD team will continue to Challange all the Try hards out there

Hi
Thanks for trying to please us but malaware won't do it.
If you downloaded it and plan to use Revo Uninstaller you probably need to find Handy Folders uninstaller and delete it first and then run Revo forced uninstall.
Hope this helps. Good luck.

WARNING =*= WARNING =*= WARNING =*= WARNING =*= WARNING

This program is a good idea, at least for the open/save dialogs to give you a quick link to your fave folders across multiple drives & networks, but if you ever uninstall it you're in for a mess. It doesn't just delete the entire "run" key in the registry, causing you to lose autostart capability of all your important stuff. It also affects your MAPI settings and other registry areas. My testing was with Windows XP SP3.

I made the mistake of using their uninstaller (to replace it with FileBox Extender which does more -- thanks for the tip, folks). After I restored my system from a backup (losing an hour's time in the process -- fortunately it was a backup only a couple hours old), I used Outpost's firewall to prevent their uninstaller from making any registry changes whatsoever. Then I used a couple registry cleaners to ensure nothing important was pointing to a now-nonexistent location. Finally I was able to go through with a regular registry search for "handy folders" and "resort labs" to delete leftovers.

Use extreme caution removing this from XP. This is a huge bug in an otherwise rather useful program. From the sound of it, better not install it on Vista either...

Hi,

w0w - what a mess....

It tried to access already configured reg keys (lucky Kaspersky prevented it)

Said Explorer was running - it wasn't... (unless it meant desktop explorer and Wimpdows will not run without it)

Loaded hf_tray.exe over 500 times (increasing every two seconds) and I
had to close XP Pro (sp2) down to stop it. Took 7 minutes to close..

NOT recommended... Thanx anyway....

Nickalf. . .

For me this program make me very happy because my explorer was crash before by Media Info and with this soft is a fast solution to navigate in :partition,my usual folders,to Internet fast from bookmark,only drag and drop in preferance from Google crome in preferance from :my place from network(first i put more buttoms with click right with particularize(up on the Adress) and make visible preferances,refresh etc.This soft deblock me.Sometimes icon from sys tray disapper but no problems(memory work more good because don't work a program soo is easy for computer(more memory resources free) and when you want to work only click right down and select this program.Icon with this program will reappear in sys tray.Inteligent solution.Soo everything work on my XP SP3 32.Scaned folder and don't find any danger.Why to not be happy.Make what he say.

As a Windows Vista user, I hit the Start key, type the name of the folder that I want and the folder appears for me to select and open. I find this method to be a fast way to get into a folder for my purposes as opposed an external program.

This did something to explorer.exe and I had to use command prompt to uninstall it! Explorer kept crashing and wouldn't stay on long enough to find the uninstaller, terrible!

First of all, my apologies to all readers for my two nearly identical coomments (#43 and #56). I waited many hours after submitting the first comment, and saw that other comments were being posted and mine wasn't. So after perhaps 6 hours or so, I submitted a new, similar comment. A while later, they both appeared.

#50 (goodgrief): I'm sure we all agree that it's good to be organized and efficient in file and folder management. But it takes a lot of time, and many people have no choice but to be involved with many projects, many interests, and hence many files and folders. Despite your self-righteous chest-thumping, many of us can't spend hours organizing our files. Precisely those who carefully organize their files into an elaborate hierarchy of folders are the ones who can most appreciate a utility like this, which makes it easy to jump quickly from one folder to another. I, for one, am considered highly organized and efficient in my computer use -- yet I use a similar utility constantly and appreciate all the time it saves me.

You also said "Of course this thing crashes Explorer.exe; it’s attempting to force it to manage your myriad of meandering, unnecessarily lengthy file paths." There's no "of course" about it, as evidenced by the many other utilities (some of them free) named in other comments that succeed very well in this task.

#51 (goodgrief again): You were unfair to chastise and insult the commenters (#13 and #16) who complained about having to use Windows Explorer. You misunderstood their point. They were simply observing that handy Folders, by default, opens Windows Explorer windows instead of their preferred, superior file manager utilities (such as xplorer2 in my case). So please lighten up, OK?

#40 Thank you. Uninstall without problem and the message “Could not register SHChangeNotify" is gone too.

Greetings and lots of love from Malaysia.

After reading the horror stories on this forum, I have decided not to venture into this one. I appreciate the alternatives offered here, since I have many files and programs and need to go through lots of folders to find what I am looking for often.

I would also like to comment on the negative comments about the free desktop organizing software, "Fences," which I find to be a great program. I have it on four computers and have not had any problems with it. In fact, I highly recommend it to anyone with shortcuts on their desktop. And, to take organizing shortcuts one step further, I have folders inside my Fences window, such as: Graphics, Media, Utilities, etc., where I put all of the shortcuts that apply to each category accordingly. And one more thing: these category folders described above have cool icons or colors, thanks to GOTD and this forum. ;)

This program causes Windows Explorer to instantly crash whenever Windows Explorer is opened in Vista. I had to uninstall Handy Folders to get Vista's Windows Explorer to open again without crashing instantly. Safe n Sec from a few wks back also did this with Vista. For some reason these programs ARE INCOMPATIBLE WITH VISTA & cause instant crashes of Windows Explorer.

I wouldn't classify this as malware however it does need some "work".
As with any new program being installed (especially beta type stuff) ALWAYS make a restore point first.
It only takes a few seconds to do & can save a HUGE ammount of headaches after.
I Had some issues as well. No contents in run key after uninstall, explorer not working correctly while installed, I had the desktop icons & task bar but it simply was not responding to clicks, etc.

However -- the 3 finger salute is sometimes handy to remember.

For those that have trouble to get uninstaller working if explorer won't come up or other various issues described causing inability to access control panel or explorer functions properly...

Press CTRL+ALT+DEL to bring up task manager
Click "file" > New Task
Type "appwiz.cpl" without the quotes & hit enter.
This opens add/remove programs.
Uninstall the product & reboot
Hopefully at this point you have windows explorer back.

If your normal programs have not started because the "run" key in registry was blown away like others or still have various explorer issues such as the "pancake stacked icons issue" described above...
Click start> programs> accessiories> system tools> system restore.
If explorer didn't return ... (can't get to start)
Press CTRL+ALT+DEL to bring up task manager
Click "file" > New Task
Type "C:\windows\system32\restore\rstrui.exe" without quotes & hit enter.
Restore back to a day/point to before you installed this program.
Reboot when told.

Click start> run> type "notepad" and hit enter.
Type 100 times the following:

I will always create a restore point before installing new software

Save the file as something that will remind you to create a restore point before installing new software.
If necessary read it before installing new software.

Cheers

I'm sure we all appreciate the effort, GOTD, and we all hope for a more attractive offering tomorrow.

I tried this program out on my XP machine, but did not find any advantage to it over FileBox Extender (reviewed way back in post #16 of my utilities blog). Filebox Extender fans, such as #20, take note of its recent update (in May), which I will test on my Vista machine this evening.

However, after reading Fubar's comment (#14 above), I am afraid to uninstall Handy Folders, so I guess I'll disable it from startup and leave it installed. Thanks for your detailed advice, Fubar.

Those of you planning to use Revo Uninstaller on Handy Folders, remember that Revo's first step is to run the program's provided uninstaller, so Revo is not likely to prevent a bad uninstallation.

#26, Janet: Anvir Task Manager does offer a limited similar function, but only by opening Explorer windows to recently accessed folders or launching recently used programs.

#22, MichaelMooreFan: 8Start Launcher performs a completely different function than today's giveaway. 8Start organizes your desktop icons and Start menu for launching programs (I reviewed it in post #25 of my utilities blog.

I hope this is helpful.

I use the free QT Tab Bar which offers similar functionality and much more... http://qttabbar.wikidot.com/

I use FileBox eXtender a free util that does the job and there is no problems reinstalling it if you have to reinstall Windows.

Upon installing, I received "Error Occurred" message. It said, "Could not register SHChangeNotify."

What's that?

My favorite freeware implementation of this kind of quick folder access desktop enhancement is Folder View. It hasn't been updated in a while, but it works great with Windows XP SP3. Other freeware alternatives include FlashFolder and Folder Menu.

A word of advice: avoid shell enhancements developed for Windows XP on Vista. Also, shell enhancements (even those made by Microsoft!) can conflict with each other. You can identify conflicting ones (if you're having Explorer crashes, etc.) by using the free NirSoft tool, ShellExView.

#16 said:
"this prog will oblige you to use Windows Explorer. Which is a great punishment !"
...um, yeah, it only runs in Windows, Einstein.

Okay, listen:
When are people going to realize that there is no - I repeat - NO substitute for organization (put it where it belongs), cleanliness (delete it if it’s not needed), and lack of BS in your computer (stop installing every magic wand that comes along to try and fix what really amounts to your laziness)?

Of course this thing crashes Explorer.exe; it’s attempting to force it to manage your myriad of meandering, unnecessarily lengthy file paths.

Any app that promises to perform a function such as this – whether it’s magically untangling your file directory or [my personal favorite] “cleaning’ your desktop/taskbar/start menu by hiding icons – is merely exacerbating your problem.

You need LESS, not more.

Learn to organize, figure out which software is essential, customize your own icons/appearance/desktop, clean up your own machine (startup entries and the like) and then, I dunno, maybe let your computer do its job for a while?

http://www.onecomputerguy.com/
http://www.annoyances.org/
http://kadaitcha.cx/
http://www.tweakguides.com/

Btw, lest you think I'm an ingrate;
GAOTD has great stuff from time to time, which I do truly appreciate. Perhaps just not today.

I see that my comment that is not malware was deleted.Ended is not malware.My antivirus work well after restart and also my firewall.This is exageration.This soft work very well.

#35, Nancy, if you can get to the program's entry in the Start menu, there should be an uninstaller listed. If you can't get that far, try booting in Safe mode.

#34, Julia, while you can do that, it isn't necessary. Just right-click the taskbar, select Toolbar, New Toolbar (at least on Vista), and you can specify any folder, containing shortcuts to programs and/or other folders. Or, you can just put folders containing shortcuts on the desktop (they won't show if you hide desktop icons), and select the Desktop toolbar. Or you can just put shortcuts to folders in the Quick Launch taskbar. You can nest folders to get cascading menus.

#40, reghacker, already mentioned that you can simply export the proper Run values prior to uninstalling. There's a mess of different run/start locations (see Microsoft Sysinternals Autoruns), I'm going to have to start exporting more of them, as Vista is incredibly bad about losing some of them, sometimes on program installations, but mostly after crashes (that's separate from the long-standing Windows bug of failing to display tray icons, which you can sometimes fix by momentarily changing the tray icon's show/hide settings). Yo, reghacker, if you think rolling up windows is neat, you should check out NTWind WindowSpace, especially if you have a high-resolution monitor. It has far more features (apart from auto-sizing, positioning, and snapping windows, etc.) than mentioned on the website, including rolling/unrolling windows, hide to tray, hide, etc.

This program does NOT function properly in XP. Plus it screws up other program's functioning. It is either badly written or it is simply undeveloped properly and unstable. I did everything I could to get it to work properly, but every problem listed occurred. I unoinstalled it, cleaned the registry well, I will forget it. A waste of time.

Seems to me it would be easier to set your files up with a bit of consistency and then you won't NEED to use explorer or a program like this to find them. I may have opened windows explorer on purpose ten times in my life...

Rocketdock is a good freeware program that I assume works something like this. I still have yet to figure out exactly what purpose this serves though. Probably because I knew I wouldn't use it.

Still, Thanks GOTD!

OK, I made the mistake and tried to install this. It said it was activated, but nothing at all happened anywhere I can find. I get no errors, but all no toolbar. Nothing I can find in the registry, nothing new in program files. No uninstall entry. Given the comments I don't want to reboot if it has done bad things, but I don't know if it has done anything. Any ideas where to find it?