How to authenticate or disable accidental click-and-drag

[Ed Bernard]

I want to be able to either:
- Disable click-and-drag within a Windows Explorer environment (when using
either left or right mouse button)
- Ask user to confirm that they want to move/copy by click-and-drag within a
Windows Explorer environment (when using left or right mouse button)

Reason: I have a couple of users who have heavy index fingers and frequently
move folders/folder-trees to other folders inadvertently. They don't
remember how to do global searches to find the lost folders and it wastes a
lot of IT time. I'm not condemning them, just trying to make it a bit more
complicated for them to move folders (which they rarely do deliberately
anyway).

I'm wondering if there's a registry fix. Anybody?

Thanks.

 

[Twayne]

I want to be able to either:
- Disable click-and-drag within a Windows Explorer environment (when
using either left or right mouse button)
- Ask user to confirm that they want to move/copy by click-and-drag
within a Windows Explorer environment (when using left or right mouse
button)

Reason: I have a couple of users who have heavy index fingers and
frequently move folders/folder-trees to other folders inadvertently.
They don't remember how to do global searches to find the lost
folders and it wastes a lot of IT time. I'm not condemning them,
just trying to make it a bit more complicated for them to move
folders (which they rarely do deliberately anyway).

I'm wondering if there's a registry fix. Anybody?

Thanks.

Ouch; I'll be watching for an answer to this one. Are you working with
the handicapped or something?
Otherwise a little training and maybe some embarassment should work
on those who should know better. Or maybe minimum wage wasn't such a
good idea after all.

It's possible to disable drag & drop but that seems like an awfully
heavy-handed way that punishes the masses for the mistakes of a few.

Could their work be setup so they don't have to drag & drop?
Teach them to use Copy/Paste maybe?
I think if it were me I'd make a trip through the possibilities in
the group policy settings & see what's there that might work.

Cheers,

Twayne

 

[Ed Bernard]

One is a corporate lawyer with a six-figure salary and another is a senior
planner with a six-figure salary. If I were possessed of a caustic nature, I
might refer to them as "handicapped", but that would be unkind. ;-|

The reality is that they have been shown how to do things several times, and
although negotiating book-sized contracts with clients or creating planning
solutions for government review might be easy for them, small things get lost
in the noise and no amount of instruction seems to stick. As for embaressing
them...that rarely has any positive effect, and in this case would be likely
to have a detrimental effect on my employment status, given that they report
directly to the COO.

But thanks anyway.

 

[Tom Willett]

Very sad. It's a shame your management plays that game. It's certainly a
company I couldn't work for.

We have a written policy that is enforced for all employees. And, it works.
All it takes is for one person to violate it and receive appropriate
punishment. The others then catch on quickly.


: One is a corporate lawyer with a six-figure salary and another is a senior
: planner with a six-figure salary. If I were possessed of a caustic
nature, I
: might refer to them as "handicapped", but that would be unkind. ;-|
:
: The reality is that they have been shown how to do things several times,
and
: although negotiating book-sized contracts with clients or creating
planning
: solutions for government review might be easy for them, small things get
lost
: in the noise and no amount of instruction seems to stick. As for
embaressing
: them...that rarely has any positive effect, and in this case would be
likely
: to have a detrimental effect on my employment status, given that they
report
: directly to the COO.
:
: But thanks anyway.
:
: "Twayne" wrote:
:
: > Ouch; I'll be watching for an answer to this one. Are you working with
: > the handicapped or something?
: > Otherwise a little training and maybe some embarassment should work
: > on those who should know better. Or maybe minimum wage wasn't such a
: > good idea after all.
: >
: > It's possible to disable drag & drop but that seems like an awfully
: > heavy-handed way that punishes the masses for the mistakes of a few.
: >
: > Could their work be setup so they don't have to drag & drop?
: > Teach them to use Copy/Paste maybe?
: > I think if it were me I'd make a trip through the possibilities in
: > the group policy settings & see what's there that might work.
: >
: > Cheers,
: >
: > Twayne
: >
: >
: >

 

[Anteaus]

Unfortunately I don't know of any way to make Explorer confirm copy/move
operations. I can suggest trying Altap Salamander, which does. (and which is
better in numerous other ways too) http://altap.cz.

I would also suggest banning the use of picture mousemats, which are often
the cause of accidental drag-and-drop, through causing a positional glitch
during a double-click.

BTW, the problem need not be caused by clumsiness, or even by user-error
whilst dragging and dropping in Explorer, it can even be the result of a
mouse-glitch while selecting a file in a File..Open dialog. Unfortunately
there is again no way of guarding against this - and sometimes the user is
totally unaware that it's happened.

 

[Richard]

I want to be able to either:
- Disable click-and-drag within a Windows Explorer environment (when using
either left or right mouse button)
- Ask user to confirm that they want to move/copy by click-and-drag within
a Windows Explorer environment (when using left or right mouse button)

Reason: I have a couple of users who have heavy index fingers and
frequently move folders/folder-trees to other folders inadvertently. They
don't remember how to do global searches to find the lost folders and it
wastes a lot of IT time. I'm not condemning them, just trying to make it
a bit more complicated for them to move folders (which they rarely do
deliberately anyway).

I'm wondering if there's a registry fix. Anybody?

Thanks.

Hi Ed,

I'm not aware of any way to add a confirmation to a drag/drop operation. If
they use My Computer (folder only), instead of Explorer (tree and folder),
they wouldn't be able to accidently drag folder-trees. Instead of using
Explorer to navigate to a particular folder, they could use Search Companion
to find files and folders, or you could put shortcuts on the Start Menu to
particular folders they regularly need to open. Possibly instead of looking
for a software solution, maybe there is a hardware possibility or two, like
mouse buttons with stronger springs, or switch to using a trak-ball instead
of mouse. (Tie reminder strings around their fingers with helium balloons on
the other end?

FWIW. --Richard

 

[biomedr]

The interface is not well protected

I don't think someone at that level should have to waste his/her obviously valuable time correcting an inadvertent move, just because his/her hand twitched as they clicked a folder. This happens to me in a File Open dialog!! Why would I want to be able to move a folder in a file open dialog anyway? The ability to require confirmation of moving files or folders would go a long way to eliminating this problem. I will try Salamander. I am looking for a new file manager, but this doesn't solve the problem of it happening in File Open or File Save dialogs.