Another little Vista annoyance: Printing directory contents

April 9, 2007

Have you ever wanted to print out the files inside a specific directory in Windows? I have…many times. In XP, it was simple. I created a printdir.bat file, saved it in the Windows folder, then I created a new action for file folders which allowed me to right-click any folder and print a directory, or list, of what was in that folder. THIS DOES NOT WORK IN VISTA!!!!!!

First of all, here is the link on Microsoft’s website that gave me step-by-step instructions for adding the Print Directory feature to XP. Since it worked so well in XP, I decided to give it a try in Vista only to discover that the File Types tab under Folder Options in the Control Panel was GONE, GONE, GONE!!! That meant I couldn’t create a new action and choose the application I wanted to use to perform the action (f you aren’t following me, go to the link at the beginning of this paragraph and read the instructions). There simply is no place you can do what I wanted to do in Vista. I read forum after forum in which others were griping about the loss of the File Types tab, too, and other than downloading a third party utility, I couldn’t find any suggestions on how to print a directory listing from within Vista.

OK, you know me well enough by now to figure out that I don’t post a problem without a solution and I did find one. Actually, I discovered at first that I could put a copy of the printdir.bat file inside each folder where I wanted to print a directory listing, then just double-click it and I did get a printed directory listing. That’s not very efficient either since I’d have to copy the file into multiple folders. The answer I found that works for me is using the Send To feature. All I have to do is right-click the folder from which I want to print a directory listing of the files inside, choose Send To and then choose printdir.bat. I can handle that since I only need one copy of the printdir.bat file that works every time I want to print a listing.

If you have Windows XP, you can use the link I placed earlier in this post to set up the Print Directory feature. If you have Vista, go ahead and create the printdir.bat file according to those same instructions, the place the file in the Send To folder. to place the file in the Send To folder, follow the instructions on this Windows Live Spaces site. Then, all you have to do is right-click the folder that contains the list of files you want to print.

Man, just when I’m starting to feel OK about this move to Vistaland, up crops another annoyance! Oh, well, it’s probably good practice for me to figure out how to solve the problem and it’s good for you, too, because you don’t have to spend the time trying to figure out how to do the same thing!

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