Subscribe via e-mail: XDir and YourDir are two very different Windows programs, but they basically have the same purpose. They create your directory structure’s output which you can use for further processing. XDir is a powerful command line tool, whereas, YourDir is a relatively easy-to-use Windows tool with a GUI.
The only input that YourDir needs is the root directory, the maximum number of items and the maximum number of subfolder levels displayed. Furthermore, you can specify whether you want to include files or only display folders. It then presents a graphical output of the directory structure which you can export in a graphics file (BMP) or in a text file (CSV). YourDir also can print the output. Note: the tool needs the .Net Framework 1.1.
XDir 1.2 is much more powerful than YourDir 1.7. However, you can’t use YourDir without studying a manual (it doesn’t even have one). Studying XDir’s somewhat difficult to read documentation is a must, though. You will understand best what XDir can do, if I show you some examples from its manual:
This command displays all folders with its contents’ total size and redirects the output to a text file:
XDir /NoFiles /Dirs /S /Form=*D*P*F*E\t*S>xdir.txt
XDir is not only good for displaying directory contents; you can also use its output for further processing by other commands. For example this command renames a folder to its present date:
XDir Folder /NoFiles /Dirs /Execute "/Form=REN *D*P*F*E {/Today=[78904512]}
And this deletes all files older than seven days:
XDir /Execute "/Form=?(#{/ZDay=}'L'{/ZToday=}-7)DEL *D*P*F*E"
If you’re going to use XDir often, you should add its installation folder to the PATH environment variable. Open the System tool in the Control Panel and go to the “Advanced Tab”. There you can set all environment variables. Don’t forget to reboot afterwards.
