I have a question about Force Explorer to Display Correct Filename Capitalization:

I've tried this on my Win95B system, with no apparent effect. Has anyone else been successful on that version?

I've seen other help pages giving "HKEY_CURRENT_USER \ SOFTWARE \ Microsoft \ Windows \ CurrentVersion \ Explorer \ Advanced" as the place to put the DontPrettyPath key (without specifying the MS Windows version), but trying that didn't help either. Any suggestions?

C Quinn

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I don't think that's possible with Windows 95 Explorer.


On Friday, December 12, 2003 at 1:42 am, C Quinn wrote:
>I have a question about Force
>Explorer to Display Correct Filename Capitalization:

I've tried this on my
>Win95B system, with no apparent effect. Has anyone else been successful on that version?

I've
>seen other help pages giving "HKEY_CURRENT_USER \ SOFTWARE \ Microsoft \ Windows
>\ CurrentVersion \ Explorer \ Advanced" as the place to put the DontPrettyPath key
>(without specifying the MS Windows version), but trying that didn't help either.
>Any suggestions?

C Quinn

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Hi C Quinn:

You have to have "Active Desktop" installed to do this. (Active Desktop is installed as an option with IE4.0, which you can subsequently upgrade as high as IE5.5SP2. If you jump right from IE3.0 to IE5.5, you don't get the option for installing Active Desktop.)

After "Active Desktop" is installed, Open EXPLORER, click on VIEW, then FOLDER OPTIONS, then VIEW. A list appears under ADVANCED SETTINGS. Put a check mark next to "Allow all uppercase names".

Have fun.

Jerry

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After some more experimenting with WIN95-B without the Active Desktop upgrade, but with just the Registry change originally suggested by the WA tip "DontPrettyPath", I've come to the conclusion that it works "sort of, sometimes."

Folder names with all caps will always be "prettied."
(FOLDER = Folder)

Folder names with all lowercase letters will be displayed properly.
(folder = folder)

Folder names with a mixture of upper and lower case letters will be displayed properly.
(folDER = folDER)

Now it gets messy: If you've got the display option "Hide MS-DOS file extension" unchecked, so you can see the file extensions in Explorer:

File names with ALL CAPS will always be "prettied".
(FILENAME.TXT = Filename.txt)

File names with ALL LOWER CASE names will be displayed properly.
(filename.txt = filename.txt)

File names with a MIXTURE of upper an lower case letters, will be displayed accurately.
(FileName.Txt = FileName.Txt; FILENAME.txt = FILENAME.txt)

If you've got the display option "Hide MS-DOS file extension" checked, so you CAN'T see the file extensions in Explorer, you may get the appearance of acceptance of file names with ALL CAPS (FILENAME), but if you do, it's because the unseen extension is still lowercase (causing a MIXTURE). If you change the unseen extension to ALL CAPS (in a DOS box, for examble), Explorer now sees "FILENAME.TXT" and will pretty it to "Filename".

When you RENAME a file in Explorer, the actual file name you type is preserved, even if it doesn't show in Explorer. For example, use explorer to rename the file "FILENAME.TXT". Explorer shows "Filename.txt". Look at the file name in a DOS box with the "DIR" command -- you'll see "FILENAME.TXT".

Isn't this fun?

Jerry

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