catching some Zzzzz's

is there any way to see "recent actions", i.e., what's loaded into ^Z?

every so often i move (drag & drop) something by accident. sloppy fingers when i'm clicking on something. suddenly i see "moving...." out of the corner of my eye, and react with horror!

i try to undo it immediately with ESC and/or ^Z. certain actions (like COPY, say) may still leave partial folders at the new destination even after doing this, however.

as such, i am rarely satisfied until i can figure out what the mis-copy/mis-move was in the first place, and make sure VISIBLY everything's back how it should be. so i use ^Y and ^Z in alternation while looking around at various folders to find out what the move/copy in question is. it's always a big relief to think "aaaah...so THIS must be what the original screwup was!"

tonight i've been going back and forth between ^Z and ^Y for an hour now and just can't find the folder(s) in question. not in any of the folders i was handling at the time. of course there are several hundred THOUSAND on the PC writ large. if it's a system folder or w/e, it could be a real mess not to find out what was moved. and at this point, i'm not even certain it hadn't been preceded by an INTENTIONAL ^Z of my own, so frankly i'm not sure whether to bail on the cycle after a ^Z or a ^Y.

i rly wanna know WHAT is MOVING!!!! any tricks to use here?

a normal drag gives a brief popup "moving XXX from folder YYY to folder ZZZ" but not for these ^Z and ^Ys. any way to flush it out?

 

2 hours now, and i must have manually looked at 5000 folders....

does anyone have ANY idea how to flush out what's in that buffer?!

until this is resolved, i'm blocked from doing absolutely ANYTHING else, since i can't afford to lose w/e is loaded into ^Z/^Y!!

 

i had actly just made 4 copies of a major directory, so if ONE of them differs from the rest, that might knock 24 hrs off the project. is there some simple way to decide whether folder (A) is identical to folder (B)...or has like ONE FILE out of place....??

 

I'm not sure I know what ^Z is; I know that ctrl+Y is "re-do" (as in "do the last action again") but I don't know if ctrl+Y is the same as ^Y (it should be - from what I remember of my ASCII shorthand, the "^" is the same as "ctrl"). I have done bit of research on ctrl+Z and found that it is short for "undo" - as in to reverse whatever you just did.... the ctrl+Y and ctrl+Z both apply to cut/copy/paste type actions (from what I've read), and these all apply to copying/cutting/temporarily moving something to/from the clipboard. I'm not sure if this is what you need, but there is a clipboard viewer program available here (freeware).

As to post #3 - there are free folder comparison tools available.... one is available here (be sure to click on the blue-ish "Download" with an arrow -it is slightly up and to the left of the "Developer" info on that page- to insure you get the correct program). You can also take a look at WinDiff. I haven't used either of these, so I have no peronsal input, but they look like they will compare the contents of 2 different folders and report what the differences are. You could also try Microsoft's SyncToy if using WinXP (I think it works with Vista/7 but I could be wrong).

I hope this helps!

 

Alternatively, for comparing files/folders, you can try apps mentioned in this thread but I think they're $hareware....

 

yes, ^Z means "ctrl" Z. young'uns!

if it were a cut/paste matter, i could go to some third location (blank txt file say) and paste a second time to see what's on the clipboard. this was a move/copy file issue, however.

upon realizing i accidentally moved something, i quickly hit ^Z to undo it. perhaps after hitting ESC first, not sure. then being uneasy about any leftovers, i hit ^Y to redo the mistake, while watching to see what exactly was moving. (and of course ^Z to undo it again)

usually this suffices, since i have some general idea where the mistake was. tonight, however, it was buried deep inside some tree far away from anything i was doing (i guess). what i was afraid of is that i had just moved "system32" into the recycler. or all my drivers to "photo downloads". yadda yadda.

what really baffles me is the algorithm for "date modified" on folders. some folders i'm working under for weeks still have the date they were created (mid-june, say), while others change immediately upon a subfolder/file being modified. i don't get it.

if they acted LOGICALLY, my whole "mis-move" issue would be a slam dunk -- just look at the LAST 1-2 folders changed; the move will be between THEM. repeat at the next level down, etc etc.

alas, but the screwy "modifed" dates led me to a total dead end.

i am STILL not sure what was moved, but i finally GAVE UP looking. sure HOPE it wasn't sys32!

 

No offense intended, but what were you doing in the Sys32 folder flailing with the Recycle Bin?!?!?!? How does someone "accidentally" move their drivers to the pictures folder? How does anyone "accidentally" copy/cut/move anything to anywhere? I've been using PCs heavily since 2002 and I think I may have accidentally sent something to the Recycle Bin maybe 3 or 4 times, but that's easy to fix.... you could always check the attributes and see when the most recent access happened in the folder or on the files concerned....

Again - no offense, but I fail to see how this is even possible.

A reboot should tell you the results of your errant 'ctrl-ing', and hopefully a system restore to the day before will help.... GOOD LUCK!

 

yes, i'm a klutz! i confess!!

i was rapidly moving a lot of stuff around, and at some point did a drag/drop before the cursor was quite in the right place. no stranger than making a TYPO while speed typing, i would say.

right away i reacted "yikes!", but i can't figure out any reliable way to identify exactly WHAT i drag/dropped. or to WHERE.

there was no "errant ctrl-ing". the ctrl-ing was all part of the attempt to UNDO the mistake. the "errancy" was all in drag/droppage.

where? if you mean "date modified", i think i just explained that those timestamps do not match reality.

but yeah, that's how i WOULD have tracked it down....

 

Right click any file/folder in 7 and click Properties. Take a look at Previous Versions - the info there may help resolve your dilemma, assuming this 7?

 

i DID actly take a look at that, but there was nothing in there. help files indicate that i need to set up some sort of autosave first (which i haven't!).



does anyone know the deal on "date modified"? if i change a file INSIDE some folder, should the date change on the folder itself? if i change a file a few levels DOWN in some folder, should the date change on ALL folders above it?

alternately, if i simply change FOLDERS not FILES in those subfolders (i.e. moving/copying things), should the head now show a date change?

dates on mine don't seem to reflect ANY of these scenarios. nor anything logical that i can suss out.

 

The whole "Date Modified" thing with folders has mystified me for a looooong time. Lets say you have a folder with some TXT files, some ZIP files, maybe some EXEs, etc. If you change one of the TXT files, 90% of the time the "Date Modified" for the folder the TXT was in does NOT change! WUZZUPWIDDAT?!?!?! A couple of years ago I was on a manual search for malware and I foolishly ignored looking in some folders because the 'modified' date was 2-3 years old, so I (again foolishly) assumed that nothing in that folder had been changed, added, or removed in 2-3 years. I was wrong. I don't know why Windows doesn't change the 'modified' date on folders EACH AND EVERY TIME ANYTHING IN THE FOLDER IS EVEN SLIGHTLY CHANGED.

(sorry for the ALL CAPS! I'm trying to convey a feeling of frustration and anger LOL )

 

dlb,

I believe (and could be wrong) that the Date Modified for folders is changed when a file is added to or removed from a folder. Hence, when the actual FOLDER CONTENTS were modified. Date Modified for files is the same -- when the FILE CONTENTS are modified. Folders don't care what's inside the files.

 

that is one of the scenarios i considered, but i can state for a fact mine do not act that way. i have repeated all sorts of "move" "undo move" experiments, while watching folders/subfolders/etc for signs of change. the ones that do indeed change seem to have NO pattern whatsoever.

ONE folder, in particular, keeps changing even tho nothing seems to move in/out of it. i have "show hidden files" turned on, but is it possible there's some SUPERHIDDEN category (system files?) which are indeed moving in/out, but invisible to my eye?

or some kind of "null" file? indeed, my status bar reads moving " and undoing move " -- one quote mark; no file name.

:confused