I recently ran across a reference to a new feature in Windows XP Explorer. You can now rename a series of files sequentially. This concept seemed like a great idea for those of us who use digital cameras that create cryptic generic file names. Instead of pic0001.jpg, pic0002.jpg and so on, you could name a group of files, Billy's-Birthday (01).jpg, Billy's-Birthday (02).jpg, and so forth. The names can be lot more descriptive and it's really easy to do. Later you can go back and rename the photos individually, but this trick is great for quickly identifying a whole group of photos you dumped into a folder and forgot about.
Here's how you do it:
1. Open Windows Explorer or My Documents.
2. Find the folder that has the files you want to rename. (You may need to click the Address drop-down to find the drive on your hard disk.)
3. Within the folder, hold down the Shift or Ctrl key and click the files you want to rename. Holding down the Shift key lets you select contiguous files and holding down Ctrl lets you select non-contiguous files. (You also want to highlight them in the reverse order you want them numbered; if you experiment with this, you'll see what I mean.)
4. Right-click and choose Rename (or choose File|Rename from the menu).
5. The last file you selected will be highlighted. Type in the new name and press Enter.
All of the files are then renamed in sequence using the new name. The first file has the name you typed and the other files have the same name followed by a number in parentheses, such as (1). For example, I had a bunch of winter snow photos that were cryptically named and I renamed the first file winterpics.jpg. So the following pictures were winterpics (1).jpg, winterpics (2).jpg, winterpics (3).jpg, and so on.
If you decide you want to start the numbering at one, instead of an image with no number, type the starting number within a parentheses. So in my case, I could have typed winterpics (1).jpg, instead of winterpics.jpg, so that all the photos would have numbers.
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