Windows Refresher; Renaming Multiple files.

Here’s a quick note Aaron Silber sent over to me reminding me of the super useful F2 key when dealing with Citrix Provisioning Server image files.

Hello All,

Just in case you weren’t aware of this little feature in Windows 7/2008, new in these versions is something interesting.  If you go to rename a file, (F2 for those looking for a quicker way than having to right-click and select Rename) you will notice that be default only the name and not the extension will highlight. At first I found this odd, then I thought it must be to protect people from accidentally changing the extension and messing up the associations. Safety aside, here is another benefit that it provides; if you ever need to rename multiple files that have the same name, but different file extensions, you can do it all in one shot now! 

When would you need to do this? One example is in Citrix Provisioning Server. When you need to make a copy of a disk, you usually have three files of the same name (.lok [Locking file;not necessary], .pvp [vDisk Properties file], .vhd [The actual vDisk]) that you copy to a new name, rename them all and then import the disk. Have a look:

Highlight all files, press F2, change the first file to XAProd-v3

Presto!

All renamed.
Anyway, I thought it was neat,
Aaron

Thanks Aaron!  I think it is neat too!