Tuesday, December 15, 2009

Get some Windows 7 Library juju, like adding non-indexed drives, with the Win7 Library Tool (with source too!)

Zorn Software - Win7 Library Tool

“Windows 7 libraries are a really useful feature of Windows 7, however unfortunately they arrive in a slightly cut-down form out of the box.  Microsoft decided against exposing some really useful capabilities to users, like adding network locations, pretty much the first thing I tried to do.  You get this message:

“This network location can’t be included because it is not indexed”

Luckily, you can add network locations (and any other un-indexed locations), but it must be done programmatically.  MS supply a command line utility slutil.exe, candidate for the worst named executable in history.  Pretty sure it stands for shell_library_util.  Anyway, I decided to write a tool to make it easy to add network locations, and added a few other features as well:

  • Add network (UNC or mapped drive) and any other un-indexed folders to libraries.
  • Backup library configuration, such that a saved set of libraries can be instantly restored at any point (like after a re-install of the OS or for transfer between multiple computers).
  • Create a mirror of all libraries (using symbolic links) in [SystemDrive]:\libraries.  This means you can reference all your files using a much shorter path, and also provides another entry-point to your files in many places in the Operating System (e.g. file open/save dialogs).
  • Change a library’s icon.

win7librarytool

…”

Besides being able to added non-index folders to a Win 7 Library, changing the icon, etc, the coolest thing is that the author included the source. Got to love that…

The application is a C#/WPF/.Net app, using Commanding/MVVM as well as the Windows API Code Pack.

(via Addictive Tips - Windows 7 Library Tool)

 

Related Past Post XRef:
Windows 7 Code Pack v1.0 Released – Managed code to help get at the yummy Windows 7 filling…

1 comment:

Tom Bedard said...

yeah, that filename is pretty poorly named. I thought it was some Intermediary Language. Couldn't figure out the rest though :P