Powerdesk 6

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Hello –

Am confused. This is touted as Free, but then when investigating a bit further, it seems to say it’s a free Trial….

Can someone clarify this for me, please.

Thanks,
Acer

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PowerDesk Pro is a commercial product ($39.95).
PowerDesk Standard Edition mentions Free Trial in the window title, but the web page unequivocally states[indent]

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PowerDesk 6 Standard Edition – Free!

Our Standard Edtion of PowerDesk 6 provides a number of the features of our more powerful PowerDesk Pro 6. This is fully usable without any time-limits.

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[/indent]I haven’t tried it myself, but from the description it appears to be totally free.

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Thanks, Hans. I had started the install process, got to the EULA page and then wanted to make sure I wasn’t opening myself up to a charge later on.

Acer

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Started out with the free 5.0 version many years ago. Eventually upgraded to Pro 6.0. Its one of the best shareware programs I’ve ever purchased. Highly recommended.

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Thank you so much, Hans.

I downloaded PD6 as soon as I saw your post, but didn’t get round to installing and trying it until now.

I’ve been using PD4 for five years now — in fact, I became aware of its existence thanks to Mark (WyllyWylly) who pointed me to PD when answering my first post in the Lounge. I am very happy with PD4, and at a first glance don’t notice major changes in PD6 besides:
– A graphical revamp.
– ONTRACK was the corporation behind PD back in 2002. Not it’s VCOM.
– PD6 doubles the RAM usage of PD4.
– The File Finder remains so much better than WinXP’s!! (not a difference, but it’s hard to understand how MS could spoil the file search interface in the transition from Win98 to WinXP)

If someone else has used both PD4 and PD6, have you noticed more critical differences between them? If not, I think I’m going to stick to my already customized, lighter (in terms of mem usage) PD4.

Thanks

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I used to use PD5. It was acceptable and had some good functionality, including the inclusion of the built-in file viewer. I think PD6 came out when OnTrack sold PD to Vcom (Oct 2002?). I tried it out at that point but some of the holes (which I don’t remember now) that were in PD5 were not fixed. Is PD6 still the latest release? That would be pretty old by now and would indicate that Vcom (or whomever) is no longer updating the program.

I used Central Point tools in DOS and Windows and have many fond memories. Central Point included the “kitchen sink” and was far beyond anything being offered by anyone else at that time. They had file viewers, disk defragging, 2 window explorer and much more. Norton would often copy and come out with similar functionality after Central Point made an update. I refused to use Norton because the perception at the time was that Norton used some underhanded tactics to drive Central Point to the brink and then brought them out. Central Point management also didn’t seem to be good business people. After buying them, Norton dropped some of the Central Point programs/functions and in other cases replaced other functions with what existed in Norton (which wasn’t generally as good).

One of the great things Central Point had way back then was true virtual desktops (i.e. multiple complete separate desktops with their own themes, icons, color schemes, etc., one was completely isolated in all aspects from the others). This was one of the functions I missed the most which if I recall correctly, Norton got rid of or let die.

Speaking of old programs, I vaguely remember another file management program I really liked and used for quite a while. I think it was called X-Tools??? There was a strong DOS version and an attempt to port into Windows which never really took off and they eventually went out of business.

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> I used to use PD5. It was acceptable and had some good functionality, including the inclusion of the built-in file viewer. I think PD6 came out when OnTrack sold PD to Vcom (Oct 2002?). I tried it out at that point but some of the holes (which I don’t remember now) that were in PD5 were not fixed.

Well, I guess my original question now boils down to knowing whether there have been major improvements from PD4 to PD5. Presumably not, so I’ll stick to PD4.

Thanks

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I got some use out of PCTools’ virtual desktops myself.

FYI, one of Microsoft’s PowerToys for Windows XP is called Virtual Desktop Manager, and it’s somewhat similar if I recall correctly. I believe I installed it on my previous XP hard drive but didn’t end up using it, so I don’t have it installed on my latest hard drive.

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Look under Help for EasyUpdate to be sure you have the latest version, because It is updated from time to time. My version is 6.0.4.2.

This is a manual update not a dial-home update, but I’ll pass on any debate over that.

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Wow – I’m sorry I missed this thread. I’ve been using PowerDesk ever since it was available on a single 3.5″ floppy disk and was called WizManager. That was back in Windows 3.1 days. I first found about it from a huge book by Brian Livingstone that I bought with my first PC – Windows 3.1 Secrets. It came with 3 5.25″ floppy disks full of neat Windows utilities and games. I just recently upgraded to 6.0 simply because I was having a lot of hangup and crash problems with 5.0; the upgrade fixed that issue. And since I inquired about a frequent-buyer discount (I listed all the versions I had paid for in the past) they gave it to me for about 30% of the regular cost. Not a bad deal, for something I too use every single day.

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Once upon a time there were two competing third-party sets of utilities for Microsoft products, Central Point PC Tools, and Norton Utilities. They were neck and neck among consumers and reviewers, but whether on merit or on who had the deeper pockets, Norton bought out or otherwise prevailed over Central Point. Software historians may be able to provide the details.

This isn’t recent. I have in hand my manual for Version 7 for DOS, yes DOS, of PC Tools DOS Shell/File Manager. Chapter 6 is on Managing Files, and that is an early version of what has since become PowerDesk 6. The manual is copyright 1991.

I also have before me the CD for Symantec Norton Navigator ‘Enhanced File Managment and Desktop Navigation’ for Windows 95. My impression is that Symantec simply bought out a competitor and about the only thing they kept and sold, as a single application at a premium price on a single CD, was Norton Navigator. You guessed it. PowerDesk 6 is (essentially) Norton Navigator.

PowerDesk 6 seems to me to run fairly slowly under modern operating systems, but that may have more to do with the vast increase in data that it must access on modern computers than anything else, and for me, it is familiar and comfortable.

A single application that lasts that long with updates to keep it current and refinements to make it better must have something going for it, and I personally use it. There may be more efficient ways of performing some operations, but that simply means that if you buy it keep an eye out for its limitations – and remember that it can almost certainly do things that other applications cannot, or at least not as efficiently. Its Folder Synchronizer, run separately, is one example of an excellent application.

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Thank you, Jack and Peter, for your inputs.

Acer

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I have been using Powerdesk 5 for years. Can’t do without it – 1000 times better than Windows Exploder. I guess I should upgrade to the latest.

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Robie –

I’ve been trying to find Powerdesk 5 to download, without luck.

Acer

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Does this site help? Scroll down.

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Sorry about the dead link. Her is an active one.

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Rob – Thanks for the link. Unfortunately, they are offering only PD6…………..

Acer

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but it’s still …

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[indent]

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Norton bought out or otherwise prevailed over Central Point. Software historians may be able to provide the details.

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Although I’m not a software historian, I can report that Norton bought Central Point Software for the sole purpose of shutting it down and eliminating the competition. Antitrust objections were raised, but (alas) the Clinton Justice Dept. let Norton get away with it.

I’ve been using computers for 20 years now, and there is no software I’ve ever been fonder of than the PCTools suite that Norton destroyed. As one example, its famous File Manager had a simple, flexible ability to produce a multi-directory varied-filespec file listing (and this was in 1993) that neither Windows XP Explorer or PowerDesk 6 (or, as far as I know, any Norton product) can match in 2007.

(PowerDesk basically takes the same constipated approach as WinXP: If you want to “include subfolders,” that option has to apply to every folder in your search; and if you want to specify one or more filespecs, those same filespecs have to apply to every folder in your search.)

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Symantec also bought Delrina and only used WinFax, and bought PowerQuest for PartitionMagic. There was both a seller and a buyer in those transactions. They didn

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I assume almost any file search software (certainly including WinXP) can give me the results of a multi-directory, variable-filespec search if I don’t mind having the results scattered among multiple windows (or panes). That’s not what I was talking about.

It can be useful to be able to search multiple directories (with different filespecs, and different “search subdirectory” choices, applicable to different directories in the search) and have the results appear in a single list that can then be, e.g., sorted by date or size and otherwise treated as a regular Explorer file list (with drag-and-drop copying, etc.). PCTools’ famous File Manager allowed me to easily do this, and to save the search for future use.

If you know of any current “file manager” that can do this, I’d love to hear about it. There’s been at least one past thread on this issue here at the Lounge, and there weren’t any positive responses to that one as I recall.

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I must amend this post at once, as it appears that we have a problem with semantics.

File managment will give you a display of such as I discussed earlier, and File Finder, which is a function within the program, will perform a search for you, giving you the files which conform to the terms of your search in a single pane.

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I am not a salesman for the product discussed here. (Are you?) I merely said I use it.

PowerDesk 6 File Finder does what you have described, subject to two qualifications. The first is that you say you want different search conditions applicable to different directories in the search, and I don

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Thanks for weighing in, but if I’m reading your post right, you’ve just confirmed for me that PowerDesk has the same two limitations as WinXP’s built-in search feature — namely, if you want the search to include multiple folders (by which I mean more than one specified folder rather than, e.g., a single specified folder and all its subfolders), then (1) if you want to elect to “search subfolders,” that same election has to apply to every folder in your search, and (2) if you want to limit the results with a filespec, that same filespec has to apply to every folder in your search.

The ability to perform that kind of search in PCTools (and have the results appear as a single list in a single pane, from which you could move, copy, delete, etc.) didn’t involve scripting or any other “advanced” feature. You just specified your search in a single textbox and separated multiple entries by semi-colons. If you wanted any particular entry to include subfolders, you added a “+” to the end. So, for example, you could type the following in the File Manager’s search textbox:

c:WoodyFiles+;c:Checklists;c:Bin*.bat+

and the results of your search would be (1) all the files in the WoodyFiles folder and all its subfolders, (2) all the files in the Checklists folder (but not its subfolders), and (3) all the files in the Bin folder (and its subfolders) ending in .bat.

This came in handy at times. I kept my work and home PC’s in sync (in terms of the files that I wanted to have available at home) for several years by doing one of these searches (saved as “Home2Work”) at the end of each workday (limited to files modified that day) and copying selected files from the resulting list to a floppy.

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My apology for having failed to distinguish between exploring (and a glorified Windows Explorer) and searching (for a glorified Windows Search). When you perform a search with this utility, your results appear in a single window pane, as I have already reported. The details may depend on your settings in Options|Preferences.

To best of my knowledge, you can indeed search with semicolons and other operators, although I admit I have not been using them. You have the benefit of both a command line and a DOS window for options. Thank you for bringing that to my attention, as I may have use for it myself. I regret that you failed to specify the details sooner.

There is a Help article in Saving search criteria, so yes, it appears that you can save save search criteria. The help file says so, even if I haven’t been using it personally.

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Thank you for bringing that to my attention, as I may have use for it myself.

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Yikes! I may be misunderstanding you again, but just in case I’m not:

My post about using semi-colons, etc., was about PCTools for Windows, and was purely historic/nostalgic. My understanding is that you definitely shouldn’t be using the PCTools File Manager on any relatively up-to-date PC, since it doesn’t understand NTFS (among many other things) and could potentially mess up your system if you tried to use it (especially for anything that involved writing to the drive). It might be that Windows would block it from doing any harm, but I wouldn’t recommend putting that to the test.

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That is correct. You are misunderstanding me, whether again or not is another matter. I was referring to PowerDesk 6.

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I was a big fan of PCTools also, I watched it evolve from a few core utilities to a comprehensive suite over the later 80’s and early 90’s – I practically ran my 386 machine around it.

With the advent of Windows 3.1 and Windows 95 on the horizon, Central Point could see that the end was in sight for DOS, and was happy to be bought out.(it was May 1994) – that’s why there wasn’t much noise about the antitrust implications.

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[indent]

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With the advent of Windows 3.1 and Windows 95 on the horizon, Central Point could see that the end was in sight for DOS, and was happy to be bought out.(it was May 1994) – that’s why there wasn’t much noise about the antitrust implications.

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That’s not correct. PCTools became PCTools for Windows, which included (among lots of other great components) a wonderful substitute “desktop shell” for Windows 3.1. Our Man Woody (among others) raved about the Windows version of PCTools in his classics “PC Mom” and “CD-Mom.”

Whether or not either of two merging companies “objects” to the merger isn’t particularly relevant for antitrust purposes. Antitrust laws are about protecting consumers, and objections were raised, but Symantec argued that Microsoft was building more and more utilities into Windows so Symantec had plenty of “competition” from Microsoft and, for whatever reasons, the U.S. Justice Dept. decided not to block the merger.

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I don’t mind you disagreeing with me, but you seem to be reading things I didn’t say: I didn’t state that the DOS version was the last version, nor did I state anything about competitor antitrust objections to the merger. What I didn’t say clearly is that with Win 3.1n success, Windows 95 on the horizon, and the release of Windows NT and NTFS in ’93, that’s where I think Central Point saw the impending though not immediate demise of DOS. And it was certainly not a hostile takeover.

My recollection of my version of PCTools for Windows was that it was still DOS based and many of its utilities were not ported to Windows. Woody may have liked it, but I was underwhelmed.

Or, Central Point saw the cash of Symantec.

Whatever happened, I’m with you on mourning the end of a great product.

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This thread has been a bit of a trip down memory lane. I had a copy of PC Tools in the DOS days, and Norton Navigator on Win95. I use Power Desk every day, and could not imagine using a PC without it.

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For history buffs, Wikipedia has an entry under Central Point Software and a link from that to PC Tools, with a list of the utilities included. In my case I have Version 7, which to my surprise includes some Windows Utilities (including Hard Disk Backup). I didn

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With so many sharing a love for PD and an agreement in the lack of equivelant funcctionality in WIndows even as of now I thought I’d chime in with an idea.

What about an open source reaplcement to Windows Explorer?

As much as PD is liked it too is lacking something I’ve been desiring for a long time and was hoping to finally see in Windows Vista, file/folder meta-data. Vista orginally was supposed to use the new file system which to my understanding was going to allow this. For whatever reason it was pulled (I think to meet deadlines). Several ‘Type’ specific files like the media files (audio & video) have methods for ‘tagging’ them with kewords or ‘tags’ to catergorize them. While ins ome case the tagging is standardized (ie IDV3 for mp3), there is no general all puprpose across all file types meta data in Windows.

Searches would be far better if it were possible to tag files & even folders and include in a search that tag info. I’ve searcched and seen a few third-party products that look like they attempt this but they are either pricey or seem to be to vertical (market wise). I’dl like to see an open source file manager to replace Windows Explorer.

Thoughts?

Ed C

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