Unfortunately comparing the contents of two directories is not easy with Windows Explorer. To quickly and easily compare the files in two directories to see which contents match and which don't the small freeware program Pathsync is recommended.
The program can quickly sort the files that two chosen directories have in common from those that are only found in one of them and offers a quick way to copy or delete the sorted files and/or synchronize the directories.
It's a really helpful tool in a situation like when an error is experienced during a copy operation involving many large files being transferred from a USB device to a hard drive and one needs to verify which files were successfully transferred and which weren't. It also comes in handy when looking for duplicate files in two directories or when comparing backups.
If looking for something with even more features such as document comparison from within text documents, another popular free program to consider for these tasks is WinMerge. It has more power than Pathsync but is slightly more complicated.
While it is possible to do some of these comparison tasks with native Windows command line instructions from the days of DOS such as the find and diff commands, the free download suggestions mentioned provide a less clunky and awkward interface.
Saturday, March 15, 2014
How to Quickly Find the Path of a File in Windows 7
To quickly get the path location of a file in Windows 7 for a cut and paste operation, in Windows Explorer hold down Shift while simultaneously right clicking with the mouse on the file of interest. The option "Copy as path" should appear in a menu. Selecting that option with a left click will copy the path to the file location into the Windows clipboard.
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