Downloading Send To X

Inside MS Windows 95

A Publication of The Cobb Group

Published June 1997

If you frequently move and copy files across your network, you'll be glad to hear that the Windows 95 Shell Development team has released a tool to make those tasks easier. It's called Send To X, and it's part of the Power Toys utilities that Microsoft distributes free over the Web.

Send To X adds several new options to the context menu's Send To function, including a handy Any Folder… command. With Send To | Any Folder…, you can move or copy files or folders anywhere simply by right-clicking their icons and choosing the desired location. The utility even keeps a log of the folders to which you've sent files in the past, so the task becomes easier each time you use the tool. Send To X also comes with several other Send To commands, which we describe in Table A. Once you've used this time-saving utility, you'll wonder how you ever got along without it.

Table A

Any Folder… is only one of the commands available to you with the Send To X Power Toy.

In this article, we'll show you where you can find the Send To X Power Toy, and then we'll walk you through the easy installation procedure. Finally, we'll demonstrate how the Any Folder… command can make file management a lot easier.

You can download your free copy of Send To X, along with the other Power Toys, from Microsoft's Web site at www.microsoft.com/ windows/common/aa2729.htm. (If this URL changes, we'll post the new address in the Article Updates section of our Web site.)

Once you're on the Power Toys page, you can download the complete set of Power Toys or just a specific utility. For the purposes of this article, we'll demonstrate how to get only Send To X.

Before starting the download, create a new folder for Send To X on your hard drive. To do so, launch Windows Explorer and navigate to the C drive. Next, pull down the File menu, select New, and then choose the Folder command. When the new folder appears, type the name Power and press [Enter].

It's worth noting here that if you install the utility to or from a folder whose path contains a space, such as the Program Files folder, the setup process will require more steps than we describe in this article. The installation instructions suggest using the default folder, C:\Power, which we use in this article. If you name your folder with spaces or a long filename, be prepared to manually enter a DOS-compatible 8.3 path or browse for the folder containing the installation files.

Now that you've created the Power folder, return to your Web browser and click on the hot spot Send To X 1.x to begin downloading the file sendtox.exe. When prompted, be sure to choose the Save to disk option and select the Power folder as the target.

After the file finishes downloading, switch back to Windows Explorer, open the Power folder, and double-click sendtox.exe. When you do, a DOS window will open as the file self-extracts, producing three new files: sendtox.inf, sendtox.dll, and Readme.txt. When the title of the DOS window changes to Finished - sendtox, as shown in Figure A, close the window.

Figure A When the title of the DOS window changes to Finished-sendtox, close the window.

On This Page

Installing Send To X
Using the Send To Any Folder… command
Conclusion

Installing Send To X

Once you have the files you need on your hard drive, you're ready to install Send To X. In Windows Explorer, right-click on Sendtox.inf and choose Install from the context menu. Once Windows 95 has completed the installation, the Introducing Send To Extensions window, shown in Figure B, will display a brief description of some of this utility's features and a few tips and tricks. You'll probably want to take a minute to scan this informative file.

Figure B Peruse the information in the Introducing Send To Extensions window to learn about the Send To X utility's features.

Using the Send To Any Folder… command

Now that you've successfully installed your new utility, let's see how you can make use of this powerful tool. To begin, open Windows Explorer and locate the file that you want to copy. For example, suppose you've created a file named MyFile.txt and you want to copy it to the D:\Archive\Files folder. To do so, right-click on MyFile.txt in Windows

Explorer and select Send To from the context menu. When the next context menu pops up, select Any Folder…, as shown in Figure C.

Figure C To copy a file to any destination you like, right-click on the file and select Send To|Any Folder… from the context menus.

The Other Folder… dialog box, shown in Figure D on page 6, will appear.

Figure D You can type the path to the folder you want to copy in the To dropdown list box, or click Browse… to locate the folder.

If you know the full path of your target folder, you can type it in the To dropdown list box. Otherwise, click the Browse… button to open the Browse for Folder dialog box. From there, locate and select the target folder as you would in Windows Explorer, and then click the OK button. The folder you selected will now appear in the Other Folder… dialog box. You can choose to copy or move the file by selecting the appropriate radio button. After you've made your selection, click the OK button to carry out the function.

As you've just seen, copying a file is very easy with the Send To menu's Any Folder' command. And the more you use the command, the easier the task becomes. This is because the Send To X utility logs the destinations you select in the Other Folder' dialog box's To dropdown list box each time you use the utility. So when you want to copy or move a file to a target folder you've used before, you can simply choose that folder from the dropdown list box, as shown in Figure E. To clear the log of target folders, just click the Clear History button.

Figure E Send To X maintains a history of target folders to make it easy to send files to destinations you've used before.

Conclusion

If you routinely move or copy files, you'll find that the Send To X utility's Any Folder… command is a quick and helpful tool for getting the job done. With its history feature, you can handle repetitive folder maintenance tasks in the blink of an eye.

The article entitled "Copying files using the Send To Menu's Any Folder…Command" was originally published in Inside Microsoft Windows 95, June 1997. Copyright © 1997, The Cobb Group, 9420 Bunson Parkway, Louisville, KY 40220. All rights reserved. For subscription information, call the Cobb Group at 1-800-223-8720.

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