File Renaming

[Happy]

At an open directory window, I right-click a file to rename it. After entering the new name, Windows sometimes refuses the action due to "File in use". This is surely ok, but why doesn't Windows refuse the action at its beginning rather than letting me type a possibly long name in vain?

 

[Bighorn]

I see it happen when a program has had a file open and it may still be in the program's memory after going to another file, usually fixed by closing the program. If a file is open in a program there usually are 2 choices under File, Save or Save as. Save as is the opportunity to rename it. A folder cannot hold 2 or more files of the exact same name, have to be different by at least one character.

As for the "at its beginning part", Windows doesn't know what it is supposed do until the Enter key is pressed or OK clicked.

And there is a limit of the length of a file name which sometimes can include the "path" to the file such as how many sub-folders one had to navigate through to get to the file.

length of file name at DuckDuckGo

DuckDuckGo. Privacy, Simplified.

duckduckgo.com

 

[Sir_George]

At an open directory window, I right-click a file to rename it. After entering the new name, Windows sometimes refuses the action due to "File in use". This is surely ok, but why doesn't Windows refuse the action at its beginning rather than letting me type a possibly long name in vain?

The issue you are raising reminds me the early days of computing. Back then, when typing an incorrect password a generic error message stating "Incorrect password entered" was presented by the system. As time pasted, that message was modified and added the "is the caps lock key turned on." Quite often that was exactly the reason my password wouldn't be recognized. Perhaps, as time goes by, the same type of message may present itself with some sort of clarification when clicking the "Change Name" option; such as "Close file to change name."

 

[The Shadow 2023]

Why, would you even try to rename that file? It would be obvious to me, that it's not a file that you should be trying to rename!

 

[Xploit Machine]

May I know what file is thatas an example? .. if it is related to system then renaming it is impossible because it is required as it is to run Windows smoothly .. forcing rename system related files will make Windows unstable or failed to work ..

 

[Happy]

Why, would you even try to rename that file? It would be obvious to me, that it's not a file that you should be trying to rename!

Because it's a file I previously created and named (e.g. a text file), and now I wish to rename it to a more descriptive title. What's wrong with that?

 

[Happy]

May I know what file is thatas an example? .. if it is related to system then renaming it is impossible because it is required as it is to run Windows smoothly .. forcing rename system related files will make Windows unstable or failed to work ..

I was referring to a file I previously created and named, and now I wish to rename it. However, my question stands as it is for any file type, whether a private or a system file.

 

[Bighorn]

What I do in File Explorer is locate a file, either click once to highlight the name then click again to open the name box and type the new name or right-click the file and choose Properties then rename it there. One does have to be careful not to change the extension or it will become unassociated with the program that created it. I always have Known file types Unchecked so I know what they are. Also of importance is a folder cannot contain 2 or more files of the exact same name, always has to be at least one character difference and a few characters can't be used, will be a warning about that.

 

[RogerOver]

Just a (very) wild guess, because you are talking about .txt files.
When you open a .txt file in Notepad and click on the cogwheel (upper right of the menu) a windows will open, called "Settings". In the line "Opening files" (or similar, my computer is in French) in that window, you should have two options: "open in a new window" or "open in a new tab".
Could it be that another tab of the same file is still open, when you try to change the file name ?
If the option is set to "open in a new tab", change it to "open in a new window". It's a new - in my opinion useless - feature in Notepad (since a recent update), that it always creates a new tab when you open Notepad, leaving the old tabs open ! You end up having more and more open tabs, whenever you open Noteapd.

 

[Bighorn]

When I see the tabs in the 'new' Notepad I close each one then the last one closes Notepad. In some ways the 'new' Notepad is good but in other ways the old one was simpler.

Comment: Notepad was always good for programmers versus a word processor [such as Word, WordPad, Works, WordPerfect, AmiPro/WordPro, LibreOffice, etc.] as no hidden features/formatting were included, quite simple. And it was a good start for learning HTML coding of Web pages.

 

[Happy]

Just a (very) wild guess, because you are talking about .txt files.
When you open a .txt file in Notepad and click on the cogwheel (upper right of the menu) a windows will open, called "Settings". In the line "Opening files" (or similar, my computer is in French) in that window, you should have two options: "open in a new window" or "open in a new tab".
Could it be that another tab of the same file is still open, when you try to change the file name ?
If the option is set to "open in a new tab", change it to "open in a new window". It's a new - in my opinion useless - feature in Notepad (since a recent update), that it always creates a new tab when you open Notepad, leaving the old tabs open ! You end up having more and more open tabs, whenever you open Noteapd.

I did not complain about Windows refusing to rename my file. I only asked why the refusal message does not pop up immediately when right-clicking "Rename", but rather only after typing the new name and clicking "Enter".

 

[Bighorn]

I did not complain about Windows refusing to rename my file. I only asked why the refusal message does not pop up immediately when right-clicking "Rename", but rather only after typing the new name and clicking "Enter".

Might be because Windows doesn't know what the new name is going to be until after it's been typed and tried to apply the change by hitting Enter. This process isn't AI or the new 'stuff', goes way back in computer history. I started learning it back in late '80s at work and got my first computer in '92.

 

[The Shadow 2023]

That's a great, Technical, answer. But the simple answer is, that you can type anything on a command line, and windows will ignore it, till you finally hit the Enter Key. That's why I used to call that the "DO IT" key.

That was "Basic Computers" day one. Yes, I taught Basic Computers, back in the early 90's. *
My oldest student was an 86 yr old man, from England. A real Gentleman, and a lot of fun.

*All we had was DOS in those days, and very old IBM PC's, with NO hard drives, only Floppy Disks.

Shadow

 

[Bighorn]

*All we had was DOS in those days, and very old IBM PC's, with NO hard drives, only Floppy Disks.

My first was with an AMD CPU 80386/40MHzs with 4MB RAM and 120MB HDD. It had both the 3.5" and 5.25" floppy drives, also had a Panasonic KP2124 Dot-Matrix printer with the color ribbon add-on. It ran MS-DOS 5 and Windows 3.1.