Tip 11: More details in My Documents and Windows Explorer

You can display more details on files in Windows Explorer and My Documents Details view.

View Mode
When scanning your folder contents in Windows Explorer, if you set the view mode to Details, per default you can view such details as:

  • Name
  • Size
  • Date
  • Type
If you need additional file information in Windows Explorer when your files are viewed in Details mode, right-click on one of the column titles in Windows Explorer and you can add columns that display fields like:
  • Attributes
  • Created
  • Accessed
  • Comment
If you select the More... option at the bottom, a dialog box displays, showing additional fields that you can select.

Comment Column
With Windows Explorer set to Details view, if you open the file properties of certain file types such as Word documents or Excel spreadsheets, you can add explanatory text or comments to the Comment column.

To add comments to a file that you can later view in Windows Explorer:

  • Right-click the file name and open the Properties dialog box.
  • Select the Summary tab.
  • Select the Comments icon and type your comments in the text box.
  • When finished, click OK.
You can also enable a folder to display information in the Comment column by creating a text file and saving it in that folder:
  • Open the folder you wish to have a comment associated with.
  • Create a text file called desktop.ini.
  • In the text file add the following lines of text:
  •      [.ShellClassInfo]
  •      InfoTip=This is where I keep all my sensitive data
  • Save the text file and close.
Replace "This is where I keep all my sensitive data" with any comment you wish to be displayed by Explorer in the Comment column of Details view. This comment will also show up in Windows Explorer when using Web view, even if the Comments column is not selected for display. It shows up in the left-hand part of the right Explorer panel.

This tip will also work with disk drives, when viewing My Computer.

Works with Windows 2000, Windows XP and Windows 2003.