How can I switch off the graphic when carrying out drag and drop

[Guest]

I have made so many mistakes while carrying out drag and drop operations
because of the 1 inch square graphic which follows my cursor around.

The arrow is positioned in the middle of the bottom of the graphic. In this
position the graphic totally obliterates the directory (sorry its now called
a folder) in the folders pane. More often than not the file is dropped in
the folder above the one I want.

Anyone know how to switch off the graphic. If not is it posible to move
the graphic so that it resides to the right of the arrow head.

 

[DP]

Dunno the answer to your question. But on my machine, I get a little tooltip
that says "Move to " and then it gives the folder name it's moving too. You
don't get that? That would seem to solve your problem.
I dont know if that's common to all versions of Vista and/or whether you
have to have some option turned on.

 

[Guest]

Thanks that gives me hope that there must be a way. All I want to know now
is how.

 

[Michael Solomon]

I have made so many mistakes while carrying out drag and drop operations
because of the 1 inch square graphic which follows my cursor around.

The arrow is positioned in the middle of the bottom of the graphic. In
this
position the graphic totally obliterates the directory (sorry its now
called
a folder) in the folders pane. More often than not the file is dropped in
the folder above the one I want.

Anyone know how to switch off the graphic. If not is it posible to move
the graphic so that it resides to the right of the arrow head.

I doubt you can turn it off. However, what I do is right click drag, when I
get to the destination, I am then offered a context menu asking me what I
wish to do, copy, move, etc. and If I've made a mistake, it also allows me
the option to cancel.

 

[Guest]

That is what I thought with my version of Vista.

This is a classic systems error that I would only expect a new developer (ie
trainee)to make. If there is no way of switching the damn thing off then you
have to use the mouse a different way in different circumstances.

Select a folder in the navigation pane and you position the arrow head to be
pointing at the folder. Select the file to move or copy and you position the
arrow head to be pointing at the file you want to move or copy. But as soon
as you hold down the mouse button you have to position the cursor by
reference to totally different visual clues since cannot see where the
pointer is pointing.

What a fopar

 

[Ronnie Vernon MVP]

Nimbus

I agree, the only way you can get rid of that large image when dragging and
dropping is to de-select the Use visual styles on windows and buttons in the
Visual Effects component in Control Panel. But, then your stuck with all of
the old windows style buttons. I'm not sure why they don't have this as an
optional setting.

 

[John Hanley]

I doubt you can turn it off. However, what I do is right click drag, when
I get to the destination, I am then offered a context menu asking me what
I wish to do, copy, move, etc. and If I've made a mistake, it also allows
me the option to cancel.

I am always learning something new from people who contribute to these
newsgroups; did not know about 'right click drag'; good stuff, thanks!

 

[Michael Solomon]

I am always learning something new from people who contribute to these
newsgroups; did not know about 'right click drag'; good stuff, thanks!

You're welcome. Here's another tip, having learned my lesson long ago with
regard to the Move function, I always use copy instead. That way, if
something goes wrong during the process, you still have the original file at
the point of origin. Once, while using Windows 95, I was moving some
graphics files as a group and the system crashed. I had a devil of a time
finding everything and did lose a few files as a result; fortunately, I was
well backed up and managed to recover the lost files.

Hence the tip, always copy, never move, when the copy is complete and you've
checked to be sure everything was copied as desired, you can then delete the
files at the point of origin. Yeah, it's an extra step but an "Ounce of
prevention..."

 

[theclyde]

I have made so many mistakes while carrying out drag and drop operations
because of the 1 inch square graphic which follows my cursor around.

The arrow is positioned in the middle of the bottom of the graphic. In this
position the graphic totally obliterates the directory (sorry its now called
a folder) in the folders pane. More often than not the file is dropped in
the folder above the one I want.

Anyone know how to switch off the graphic. If not is it posible to move
the graphic so that it resides to the right of the arrow head.

I have grrrd at the obtrusiveness of the graphic as well. Usually end
up doing 2 or three fly by's with the cursor before I am confident I
am dragging to the right location. I would love to kill the graphic.