FreeCommander – Open Source Replacement for Windows Explorer

FreeCommander is a handy, free software program that offers more features and ease of use for handling files than Windows Explorer. It provides a dual-pane interface that makes is a lot easier transferring files between drives plus other useful features.

Download FreeCommander at http://www.freecommander.com/fc_downl_en.htm.

Installing FreeCommander

You can install FreeCommander as a full program or as a portable program so you can run it from a USB flash drive. A U3 version is also available for USB flash drives with that capability. Download the version you want using the following links:

Full version: http://www.freecommander.com/fc_downl_en.htm (there is a help file download available on this page also)
Portable/U3 versions: http://www.freecommander.com/fc_u3_en.htm

Using FreeCommander

When you open FreeCommander for the first time, two panes display showing the same hard drive.

You can view a different hard drive and add tabs to each pane to view more than two hard drives. To show a different hard drive in the right pane, click on a hard drive letter above the right pane.

If you want to display a directory tree like Windows Explorer, you may do so separately for each pane. Select the pane for which you want to display the directory tree and select Tree from the View menu.

This displays a Windows Explorer-like tree.

A quick way to go back to a higher level directory in the current path is to select the directory in the path name.

You can have access to more than two hard drives using tabs in each pane. To add a tab to a pane, select the pane to which you want to add a tab and select New folder tab from the View menu.

You can specify a different hard drive for each tab on each pane by clicking on the drive letter above the tabs.

FreeCommander also allows you to zip and unzip any files or folders and send the archive directly to another hard drive. To do this, select some files or a folder containing some files from any of the hard drives available. Select Pack from the File menu.

The Pack files dialog box displays. Select the destination for the archive using the Target archive drop-down list or the browse button next to it. If you want the archive to be placed in the same directory as the files you are zipping, click the use current dir check box.

Select the type of archive from the Archive format drop-down list and specify any other desired options in the Options section. Click OK to create the archive.

There are many other features in FreeCommander such as the following:

Built-in file viewer to view files in hex, binary, text, or image, including files inside of archives
Easy access to system folders, control panel, desktop and start menu