Windows 7 Tutorial

Change the name of a file + rename multiple files in Windows 7

There are two ways to create a file: one way is to right-click on your desktop or inside Windows Explorer, choose "New" from the context menu that opens, and pick the file type; another is to save a new document inside a particular program. In both cases, you have the option to choose a name for your file, and this will stay that point from thereon. But you can change the file name at any point you want: when you choose the "Save As" command inside a program, this creates a new copy of the file with the name of your choice, but doesn't rename the original file itself. Except for advanced applications that include a "Rename" command, the only way to rename a file is to go through Windows Explorer or your desktop. And as you'll learn in this tutorial, Windows 7 also lets you rename multiple files at the same time.

 

Rename a single file

Follow these simple steps to rename the file of your choice:

Caution: to avoid file renaming error messages, make sure that you exit any program that currently open one of the files you want to rename (or a least close that particular file). In some cases, you may not see an error message, and be able to change the name, but will accidentally save the file under its original name if it remained opened inside an application.

Tip: if you accidentally end up with the editable file name (i.e., triggered a rename command by mistake), just press the escape key on your keyboard ("Esc"), and Windows 7 will cancel the rename operation - and the file name is no longer editable text.

Change the names of several files at once

Windows 7 also allows you to rename multiple files at the same time:

More info: Renaming several files using this method is limited, since only using a number to differentiate files by name may not be too helpful; if so, look into "DOS and batch files" (an advanced topic), which allows for advanced renaming using custom scripts. For even more flexibility, you can use Windows Script Host with JScript & VBScript, or PowerShell.

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