How To Easily Tag Files in Windows XP
June 21, 2008 by Jason Bean
Filed under Computers
The question today is whether or not there is an easy, efficient and effective way to “tag” files. My brother presented the question to me initially and I began searching. The goal is to be able to tag any file whatsoever and then be able to search for one of those keywords and see all files that relate to that keyword.
I was thinking that Windows Vista was supposed to improve on this, but there’s got to be a way to do it in Windows XP as well.
After doing a quick search I found these results but I’m wondering what kind of information everyone else has.
- Tagging files in Windows XP (and why you’ll ditch Google Desktop)
- Tagging files under windows XP or Vista
- Tag files to help find them later
Are you familiar with anything in those articles? It all seems pretty standard and basic to me, but it leaves me with one question. Does it work for you? I’m using Windows Desktop Search and not Google Desktop Search.
Which one have you found that works best for you? Why do you feel that way?
I used to have Google Desktop but it really sucked. It seemed slow at loading, or crashed a lot or something. I don’t remember, but it was crud. I uninstalled it not so long after. Everyone I know that used it, had issues.
Google’s good at web stuff, but I think their horrible at desktop software. Desktop and Toolbar are clear examples.
I’ve used Windows Search 4.0, and it’s ok. But I don’t really use it. I just prefer digging around folders to find what I want.
I am working on tagging and organizing lots of photos for a company. The photos live on a server and employees in various departments are to be able to search the files. The company limits application downloads so to keep things very simple, I’ve decided to tag images using the Windows file attribute. I began tagging using XP but they just rolled out Vista and I have found some differences. My biggest wish is to be able to tag a bunch of files (using the Windows file properties) at once and then tailor specific images as needed. I’ve tried using other applications that have a ‘batch’ feature like Adobe Bridge but the metadata doesn’t present itself to the Window’s search feature. If anyone has any suggestions I would love the input. Until then…I continue on with the tedious work.
I’m also working on organizing my image collection and document files. For the image collection, I am testing Adobe Photoshop Lightroom (trying the trial version at the moment) because it allows one to manage each image’s metadata by writing info onto a “sidecar” that attaches to each photo. there seem to be some issues with preserving the original date of the images, not corrupting this info with the addition of new info.. but I’m still learning about that.
For document files, I am still trying to figure out a good “search”system, but have yet to find one that would allow for easy keyword searching. I wonder if there is software that would automatically search the content of the text, perform a word frequency analysis and automatically assign, say, the first twenty most frequent keywords (with the option for the user to add custom keywords)? After all, documents are composed of text, and Word can certainly search text…