COMMENT field size in NTFS

[Guest]

Greetings all,

I was wondering - is there a registry key modification or some other tweak
that would allow me to show more than the default number of characters - text
- in the "comments" field in Explorer? (I think that its 64 characters or
something like that). This would be when viewing a folder in the "details"
view, with the 'comments' field selected, among other things. Obviously, I've
made sure that I have enough screen space (I have a 1920x1200 WUXGA display)
- but I can only see about 64 characters or so, no matter how long the
comments that I enter for a file actually are.

I like putting in longer descriptions, and while I can view them by going to
"properties" for a file, I'd really like to see them in their entirety when I
have Explorer running in full-screen mode.

If any of you have some thoughts/ideas/solutions and can help, I would
really appreciate it. Thanks in advance, and have a great day!

-N

 

[Wesley Vogel]

Why don't you change the Comments column width?

Double click the Comments header divider to open the column to the width
needed to view the longest entry. You have to drag it back to get it to be
narrow again.

Click and Drag the Comments header divider to change the width of the
column.

Ctrl + + (Hold the Ctrl key down and press the plus key twice on the numeric
keypad), this will adjust the all the column widths to the longest entry.

Column Headers can also be left clicked and dragged to change the order.

How to Change Column Settings in Windows Explorer
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;310297

--
Hope this helps. Let us know.

Wes
MS-MVP Windows Shell/User

In

 

[Guest]

Thanks for the quick reply, Wesley, but unfortunately that is not the actual
problem - even if I expand the column width to the far right corner of the
window, I can only see a limited amount of text for the 'comment' field.

In 'Properties->Summary' for a given file (say, a .JPG or even a .TXT), I
can enter more than 128 characters, probably more - I have tried both the
'simple' and 'advanced' modes of editing the file property tags. The issue
comes up when you view the file in Explorer, in the Detail view.
No matter how much I stretch the Comments field, it never shows any text
past the 64 or so character point. The text just gets truncated. All the
comment text is still there, if I go back to Properties ->Summary, so it's
not getting deleted from the NTFS MFT, it just doesn't show it all in
Explorer...

I've poked around on Technet and MSKB, (and the requsiite searches on
MSN/G**gle and the rest, but I can't seem to find any reference to that
particular oddity.

If you, or someone else looking at this, can think of someplace obvious in
the registry that might be a good place to look around, I'd certainly
appreciate any suggestions. Oh Yes - I did try TweakUI, but no go... at
least, I didn't see anything specifically related to displaying/limiting/etc.
the text in a column.
Oh and thanks for letting me know about CTRL++, I was unaware of that little
shortcut!

-N

 

[Wesley Vogel]

Nicholas,

I could get Comments to display 78 characters. That number is probably
irrelevant as you want as many as you can get anyway.

I looked through
HKEY_CURRENT_USER
and
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet
and I couldn't find anything obvious. Of course, it wouldn't be obvious if
there were a setting, which I doubt there is.

This may just be something that is limited by Windows and not changeable.
And to see the whole comment (whatever that is limited to) you'll have to
use File Properties. This is all conjecture, I do not know for sure.

--
Hope this helps. Let us know.

Wes
MS-MVP Windows Shell/User

In