Welcome to WinSince WinSince is a customizable file processing utility that allows you to look for files created on or after a particular date. It can look for these files in a single directory, in subdirectories, or across entire multiple drives. You can also clear the date requirement and search for all files of a particular type, such as *.tmp. You can then print a list of the files found, or perform a customizable Action on some or all of the files. With version 2 of WinSince, you can now automate your tasks and WinSince environment by using the command line start up qualifiers. You can create multiple WinSince instances, each customized to perform a selected file search and action. Its ability to search for files created relative to the current date, such as 2 days ago, allows for powerful automation. At it simplest, WinSince will help you find files. But by using the definable Actions, WinSince becomes an iterative program launcher, running both Windows programs and DOS functions and programs. Since it can also pass file names to DOS batch files, you have complete file flexibility. Its combination of graphical presentation and command line flexibility make it an excellent tool for power users and networkers. When customized for a particular person, its point and click useability make it an excellent end user tool. WinSince features include: 12 definable File Type buttons, which you can set to any file type and make permanent. The file Date to check for can be easily set using the VCR-style controls, or entered directly. Files matching the File Type (and Date if required) are listed with their creation date, size, attributes and path. 10 definable Action buttons, which can run both Windows and DOS programs. Into an Action you can pass the path, complete file name, 8 character file name, and file extension. For each Action you can define the caption on the Action button, the Window format (maximized, minimized, etc.) and if a warning is to precede the Action. You can start a program by double clicking on a file name. Command line qualifiers allow you to select which files to search for at start up time, which directory to start in, and to keep a list of files found in a log file. You can also run WinSince actions on the files found. Rob Hueniken, August 1993 Help Topics available: Quick StartidxQuick Using File ButtonshowFileButtons Selecting the DateidxDate Editing and Using Action ButtonsidxActionButtons Double Clicking to start a programidxDoubleClick Options menuidxOptionsMenu Hints and Examples Using Command Line QualifiersidxGeneralHints Quick Start This section gives a quick tutorial on the major WinSince features. It is intended for first time users. WinSince uses normal Windows conventions, so previous experience with moving between directories and selecting files from a list will be useful. See the other Help sections for detailed help. For the tutorial flow to be correct, follow the steps right after starting WinSince. The tutorial will suggest what to click the mouse on at a particular time. A Quick Tour of WinSince The main WinSince Screen When WinSince starts the current drive and directory will be shown in the top right of the screen. You can change to a new directory by double clicking on a subdirectory name. Beneath the directory boxes is the File Type button section, which has 12 definable buttons. Click on the one that has the caption *.exe. The Directory total file list (middle top of the screen) will show the number of .exe files in the current directory. Click on the *.* button and see how many files there are in total. The date that WinSince will use while searching is the Find Since date, shown on the middle left of the screen. Right now it will show today's date and the word Today to the right. Under the Find Since date are the VCR-like controls to change the date. Click on the < Day button to move back a day to Yesterday. Press the Today button to return to Today's date. This is fun ! The big button with the colorful icon in the middle of the screen will say Get Files because you have changed the type of files to look for. Click on the Get Files button. WinSince will fill the Files Changed list box in the top left of the screen with any files changed today (because the File Type is *.* and the Find Since date is Today). The big button will change to Have Files. If the Files Changed list box is empty then no files were changed in this directory today. Click on the Clear Date button: the date box will now say No Since Date, which tells WinSince that it should not worry about the file creation date when searching for files. Click on the Get Files button. This time there will likely be files in the top left list box (unless your directory is empty, in which case you need to double click your way to a busier directory) and it will have a title that begins with No date selected. The file details shown are: the name of the file, its creation date (in MM-DD-YYYY HH:MM:SS format), its size in bytes, any attributes (such as a for archive, r for readonly, h for hidden), and the full path of the file. Click on any one of the files. It will show in reverse video. Click on the Dir button found at the bottom of the screen. The Dir button is one of the 10 definable Action keys. You will see a DOS box appear and the DOS Dir command will be run on the file you selected. After the command is completed, you will see a Press a key when ready... request in the DOS box; this pause is built into the Dir Action definition, which you will see soon. Press return to complete the Action. Next, look at the section above the Action buttons on the left. This section lets you choose whether you will search for files in the selected directory, down into subdirectories, or across entire drives. Next to the Search entire drives radio button is a listing of the drives that are available to you, such as a: b: c:. Click on the box to the left of your hard drive's letter, then click on the Free Bytes button on the lower right of the screen. In the box below you will see the number of bytes free on this disk and the percent free. You can select multiple drives and click on the Free Bytes button to give you a total. This can be very handy for checking total disk space available. The Set Type button is found on the right beneath the File Type buttons. Click on the Set Type button. A small form will overlay the File Type buttons. Click on one or more of the small buttons, and watch the button's file type change to the current File Type to Set (*.*). This is fun ! If you make a mistake then press the Reset button to restore the values. Pressing the Cancel button will exit the button-setting form without changes; pressing the OK button will change the values on the main WinSince screen. Changed File Type buttons can be saved from the File menu or when you Exit the program (bottom right of main WinSince screen). The Edit Screen The last major section to examine is the Edit menu item. Click on the Edit item along the top of the main WinSince screen. The Define Action Keys for WinSince editing form will appear. There are two areas in the Edit screen. At the top is a list of summarized Actions and at the bottom is the actual editing area. Click on the Action 2 Dir item in the top section. It will change to reverse video, and the lower editing area will change to reflect the components of this Action. For the Dir command you will see that the Action to Do is dir %d:\%p\%f. The %d refers to the drive, %p refers to the path and the %f refers to the file name. When the action is actually run on a selected file WinSince will replace the %d, %p and %f placeholders to yield a real directory command, such as dir c:\windows\win.ini (drive=%d=c path=%p=windows and file=%f=win.ini). Notice that the Windows or Dos check box is empty because the Dir command is a DOS command, not a Windows program. When you start defining your own Actions, they can be DOS commands and programs, or Windows programs. By setting the various fields you can modify the selected Action to do just about anything. A more thorough explanation of Action editing can be found in the Editing and Using Action Buttons help section. Click on the Exit button in the Edit screen. This will return you to the main WinSince screen. To exit the WinSince program, click on the Exit button in the bottom right of the main WinSince screen. Finding Files and Using the File Buttons When WinSince starts, it defaults to finding all files changed today in the current directory. Above the main file list box (top left) will be shown the number of files found, the date being checked, and the type of search. When a search is complete the large central button will read "Have Files". Whenever you change the file type or date the button will read "Get Files", which WinSince will do when you press the button. There are 3 file search options you can select: 1) Search selected directory: This is the default mode, searching only the directory selected using the drive and directory selection controls. 2) Directory and Subdirectories: This begins the file search in the current directory and includes any subdirectories under the current directory. 3) Search entire drives: To use this option, select one or more drives to search. These drive selectors are shared with the Free Bytes function. The drive and subdirectory selection controls operate in the standard Windows manner. The "Directory total" file list box shows the names of files matching the File Type in the current directory, irrespective of the Date selected. Single clicking on a file in this list will show the file details of this single file below the main file details list box. Under the subdirectory control is the File Type text box. You can directly enter the file type here, such as HELLO.* or you can click on one of the 12 file type buttons. You can use the * (multiple character wild card) and ? (single character wild card) symbols as accepted by DOS. Defining your own File Type Buttons To define your own File Type button, press the Set Type button. A small form ("Set File Button") will overlay the existing file buttons. You can edit the "File Type to Set" file name as needed. To set a button to the File Type to Set file name just click on one of the 12 buttons. It's fun! Press the OK button to accept the new file buttons, or Cancel to return without changes. The Reset button will reset the file button values to those when you entered the form. You can make your File Type button changes permanent by using the File menu Save File Buttons menu selection. You will also be warned if you are about to exit without saving new Button types. The Free Bytes button is used to determine the amount of free disk space remaining on your disk drives. Before clicking on the Free Bytes button select one or more disk drives in the Search entire Drives section. When you click on the Free Bytes button it will check all selected drives, including any floppy drives you selected. The free space in bytes and as a percent of the total available space is shown. Because Free Bytes uses the same disk drive selectors as the file search across drives, you should check which drives you have selected before pressing the Get Files button to find files. Selecting the File Date Next to the "Find Since" prompt is the Date text box. You can directly enter the date here in MM-DD-YYYY format, or use the VCR controls to move forward or backward by a Day or Week at a time. The adjacent text box shows the date offset, relative to today (ex. Yesterday). For example, to select files created since January 20, 1991 the date field would appear as 01-20-1991. The Clear Date button will let you look for files without regard to their creation date. This is very handy for finding all files of a particular type. The Save Date button stores the current date for later retrieval with the Reset Date button. If you find a date that shows important file activity you can use the Save Date button, then change the date to look more, knowing that you can get back to the files for the previous date by pressing the Reset Date and Get Files buttons. When WinSince starts, it defaults to Today, unless you use the /SINCE command line qualifier. For a discussion of /SINCE, see the "Using Command Line Qualifiers" section. Editing and Using the Action Buttons In many instances, just having a list of files matching a date and file type is enough. But other times you will want to perform actions on some or all of the files found. The Actions available in WinSince can be both Windows programs and DOS functions and programs. To select a single file to act on, click on the file name in the main list box. To select multiple files, hold down the Control key while you select additional files, or hold down the Shift key to select all files up to the file clicked. You can select all files using the All button, and unselect all files using the None button. There are 10 definable Action keys located along the bottom left of the screen in two rows. To view the current set of Actions enter the Edit menu option. The list box shows the descriptions of the 10 Actions, as well as the Cut Buffer. The Action Caption can be up to 10 characters long. The Action to Do can be up to 100 characters long. It can be a DOS command or program (such as COPY or FOX.EXE) or a Windows program (such as EXCEL.EXE). Special substitution symbols allow you to pass the selected files to the Action in very flexible ways: The Action to Do can be up to 100 characters long. It can be a DOS command or program (such as COPY or FOX.EXE) or a Windows program (such as EXCEL.EXE). Special substitution symbols allow you to pass the selected files to the Action in very flexible ways: %D Drive Substitutes the drive letter, excluding the ending ":\" %P Path Substitutes the path, excluding the starting and ending "\" %F Filename Substitutes the 8 character name, the period, and the file extension %N Name Substitutes only the 8 character name, with no period %E Extension Substitutes only the 3 character file extension Example: If the file list shows an entry for C:\WINDOWS\FILE.TXT, and the Action is COPY %D:\%P\%F A:\%N_2.%E you would get a resulting command of COPY C:\WINDOWS\FILE.TXT A:\FILE_2.TXT I.e. %D is C (note how there is no ":\" ; you put that in) %P is WINDOWS (note how there is no "\" at front or back) %F is FILE.TXT %N is FILE %E is TXT Click on an Action in the Action list box to begin editing it. When done, click on the OK button; the changes will then appear in the Action list box and be ready for use. The caption will also be changed on the corresponding Action button in the main WinSince window. The Cancel button will cancel the changes if the OK button has not yet been pressed. You can use the Copy button to copy a selected Action to the Cut Buffer. The Paste button will copy the contents of the Cut Buffer to a selected Action. The Exit button returns you to the main WinSince screen. The Window Format will usually be Normal, Show Minimized or Show Maximized. The Run Windows Program check box should be selected to run a program requiring Windows. For DOS commands and programs leave this box unchecked. DOS Actions are best run using the DOS Batch File, which uses the SINCECLS.PIF file to run the Action in a windowed DOS box, and to close the Window when done. You can use the PIF editor to modify this to use Full Screen, etc. as required. If you do not use the DOS Batch File option then each iteration of the Action on a list of files will create a new DOS box under Windows, usually causing you to run out of memory. By using the DOS Batch File, a single batch file is created (SINCETMP.BAT in the TEMP directory) that needs only a single DOS box to run. If you check Pause between DOS Actions then a DOS Pause command is inserted between each action in the batch file. If you check Pause at end of DOS Batch then a DOS Pause command is inserted after the last action in the batch file. If you do not specify the pause at the end then the window will close when the action is completed, which is useful if you run a minimized action that you don't want to see the final status of. The Warn before Starting check box will present you with a message box before the Action is performed on a selected file. If you select No then the next selected file will be presented. If you select Cancel the action is ended for all selected files. For DOS Batch File actions a single warning is given before the batch file is started, showing a sample action contained in the batch file. For Windows actions there is no direct parallel to the pause ability of the DOS batch file. Instead, you can check the Warn before Starting box. Before the action is started on the next file you will be presented with the Warning box. Ignore the Warning box and click on the Windows application. When you finish the application the Warning box will still be there. You can then progress to the next file, or cancel subsequent actions. You can make your Action button changes permanent by using the File menu Save Actions menu selection. You will also be warned if you are about to exit without saving new Actions. Note: if you make an error while editing an Action, exit WinSince without saving the changed Action definitions. When you restart WinSince the previous actions will be there. Double Clicking to start a program You can start any executable program (.exe, .com, .bat, .pif) by double clicking on its name in either the directory file list or the selected files list box. You can also start the associated program for the file's extension (such as starting NOTEPAD.EXE when you double click on README.TXT). You can set the Warn before run double click option in the Options menu to verify what program will be run when you double click on a particular file type. Setting this option is useful for verifying the file associations within Windows. Once you are confident that clicking on a file type runs the right program you can reset this option. Options Menu The options for WinSince are: 1) Get file information when start up: If set, WinSince will look for files created today in the current directory when WinSince starts. If you do not often want a list of the changed files in the current directory then reset this option. Resetting this option may save a bit of time at start up if you start in a directory with many files. Use the Get Files button to search for files. If the /search command line qualifier is used it overrides this option to always get file information at start up. 2) Warn before run double click: If set, WinSince will present you with a warning box when you double click on a file name. The warning box will show the command about to be run (such as NOTEPAD.EXE README.TXT if you double click on readme.txt). Setting this option is useful for verifying the file associations within Windows. Once you are confident that clicking on a file type runs the right program you can reset this option. 3) Run program on own when double click: This option is usually set. If reset and you double click on a program (.exe, .com, .bat, .pif) you will pass the program name to the program itself (such as EXCEL.EXE EXCEL.EXE). This is rarely the action wanted when you double click on an executable, but it is included for use under special circumstances. When you exit WinSince, the options are saved. Hints and Examples By customizing the Action buttons you can create a very powerful and easy to use working environment that can solve virtually any task involving file manipulations and program execution. The copy of Since.ini provided with the program provides additional examples of defining the Action buttons. Example: Save today's work to floppy (into a single directory) One of the reasons I wrote WinSince was to be able to see which files had been changed during today's work session and to copy them to a floppy for safe keeping. By selecting a date of Today, searching for files, and using a DOS Batch File Action defined as COPY %D:\%P\%F A: I can now save today's work to floppy quickly and easily. Notice how you have to put the \ in. If there are many files to copy the Pause between and Pause at end controls will let you see the individual Action results. Note that all files go into a single directory on A: Example: Save today's work to floppy (into a directory structure that looks just like that on the source hard drive): Select a Since date of Today, search for all files in the subdirectories, select the files you want (perhaps All or All with some removed) and use a DOS Batch File Action defined as XCOPY %D:\%P\%F A:\%P\ The XCOPY command handles the creation of the subdirectories as needed. Notice how the XCOPY command ends with "\". If you leave it off XCOPY will ask you if things are Files or Directories as it copies. You can use the Free Bytes button after the search to check that the target floppy has enough space to copy the files to. The total size of the files is listed at the bottom of the file list. Example: Save today's work to floppy and move it to another machine: This is like the previous example, except there are two Actions done, one on each machine. Select a Since date of Today, search for all files in the hard drive subdirectories, select the files you want (perhaps All or All with some removed) and use a DOS Batch File Action defined as XCOPY %D:\%P\%F A:\%P\ Now you have the files on the floppy. On the target machine, search for all files in the floppy subdirectories, then use a DOS Batch File Action defined as XCOPY %D:\%P\%F C:\%P\ Here I am assuming that A: is a floppy and C: the hard drive. Example: Copy files into a directory structure that looks similar to the original, but indented by a subdirectory layer: Search for some files, select the files you want and use a DOS Batch File Action defined as XCOPY %D:\%P\%F %D:\SAVE\%P\ Essentially, this is preficing the original Path with another directory. Similarly, you could do XCOPY %D:\%P\%F G:\SAVE\MORE\%P\ to move files even deeper on another drive (G:). Example: Get a copy of files existing in one directory from a different directory Suppose you have a directory called C:\FILES with 5 files in it, and another directory C:\NEW\FILES with 10 files. The files in C:\FILES need to be set to the contents of C:\NEW\FILES but you don't want all 10 files, just the 5 files. Clear the Date, and use the Directory controls to move to the C:\FILES directory. Set the Search Type to Search selected directory and press the Get Files button. Use the All button to select all 5 files. Then use a DOS Batch File Action defined as COPY C:\NEW\FILES\%F C:\FILES Reclaiming the Original WinSince Actions If you somehow lose the Action definitions, the original ones programmed into WinSince can be returned. Edit the Since.ini file and delete the Action lines in the [Since] section. When you start WinSince again the original Actions will be there. Using the Warning check box to verify Actions and Double Clicks When first defining an Action, it is useful to set the Warning check box in the Edit screen. This will allow you to see what the final command to be run will be, including the file name. To test the new Action, select one or more files from the top left list box and run your command. If the command to run is not as you expected, you can choose "No" and Edit the Action. Once you are satisfied that your new Action is working, you can reset the Warning check box. Similarly, you can use the Options menu to set the "Warn before run double click" option. This will show the command to be run when you double click a file name. This is a good way to verify the file associations within Windows. An Action Without a File You can define an Action that does not need any files. The example supplied with WinSince is the running of the Windows Notepad.exe editor without a starting file. When you set up the Action to Do leave out any reference to %D, %P, %F, %N and %E. This will allow the Action to start if no files are selected. If you do select one or more files then the Action will be performed that many times, but as the Action is defined, there will be no file names passed to the program. Keeping the Selected Files List You can double click to move to another drive or directory without losing the list of selected files. Only when you press the Get Files or Have Files buttons will WinSince get a new list of files. Keeping the Action Definitions on Screen If you often enter the Action Edit window to see what the Action definitions are, you can leave it on screen while using WinSince. Clicking on the Summary button will hide the edit details, and just show the main Action details. You can continue editing by clicking on the Detail button. Clearing the Date is Important Using the Clear Date button allows you to search for all files of a particular type, regardless of the file creation date. By being able to look across multiple drives and down subdirectory trees, WinSince is a powerful tool for finding files. Temporary Files created by WinSince WinSince uses a temporary file, SINCE.TMP, to store search information. The location of this file is defined by the environment variable TEMP. WinSince is careful enough to check for low disk quota (500,000), and will notify you if it might run out of free disk space while searching for files. WinSince also creates a DOS Batch File, SINCETMP.BAT, in the TEMP area. Developing using Sheridan Software Systems Widgets WinSince uses one Sheridan runtime VBX file, SS3D2.VBX. If you are developing with Visual Basic and this Sheridan VBX file, be sure to close WinSince before opening the VB project. If you do not, VB will give you the message "Can't load Custom Control DLL: SS3D2.VBX". "Sub or Function not defined" error This error can indicate that the SINCE.DLL or the Visual Basic 3.0 VBRUN300.DLL files are not on the path. For simplicity you can put WinSince in the main Windows directory, which is almost always on the path. This new version of WinSince has a new SINCE.DLL; any copies of the older SINCE.DLL should be deleted. Command Line Examples For command line examples, see the section on Batch Mode and Command Line Qualifiers. Using Command Line Qualifiers WinSince 2.0 can run minimized in batch mode, logging files found, performing an action on the files found, and then exiting when done. Because the action to be performed can be any Windows program, DOS command or program, you have complete flexibility in defining what gets done. Its relative date searching lets you search for files created a number of days before the current date. WinSince will find the files you want to work on. The command line startup instructions allow you to create specialized WinSince instances that automate your file management. Once you set up your WinSince Actions, you can create Program Manager WinSince icons to define each of your file tasks. The new start up commands include: /dir= Directory to start program in Example: /dir=c:\windows If /dir is left off, then WinSince will start in directory specified in the Startup Directory specified by the Windows Program Manager property. /filetype= Type of files to search for Example: /filetype=*.bat If /filetype is left off, WinSince uses *.* Any files found by a search are selected within the file list box. /subdir Search down the subdirectory tree from the directory specified in /dir. If /subdir is left off, then WinSince only searches the startup directory. /drives= Search the entire selected drives for the file type. Example: /drives=cdf would search drives C, D and F. Non-existent drives are ignored, which can be handy on networks where drives come and go. It will give an error though if no drives are found to be valid. If both /drives and /subdir are left off, WinSince searches the startup directory. /cleardate Ignore the creation date when finding files If /cleardate is left off, WinSince searches for files created today. /since= Creation date of files to find since. Files created on or after this date will be included. Absolute date method; handy when you know the date to check: Example 1: /since=01-30-1993 (find files created since Jan 30 1993) (ie. format is /since=mm-dd-yyyy) Relative date method; handy for automating searches to run each day: Example 2: /since=-5 (find files created since 5 days ago) (ie. today - 5 days) /search Search for files when WinSince starts, even if Option is set to not get files when starting up. Usually you'll want to include this so that WinSince finds selected files on startup. You should leave /search off if you are using /dir and/or /filetype to specify startup values but don't want a file search to delay the startup of WinSince. /action= Action number (1 to 10) to perform on the files. The action can be any of the 10 actions defined by you within the WinSince Edit screen. Example: /action=10 performs action number 10 on any files found. If /action is left off, WinSince searches for files but does not perform an action on the files found. If /min is present, then the Action run will run in a minimized window, even if the Action is defined to run full size, etc. All other aspects of the defined Action are run as defined, so be sure to NOT include any Pauses between or at the end of DOS actions, and to NOT have the Confirm before run option set in Edit. The reason is that the Action will run minimized, and you will not see the request for keystrokes ("Press return to continue"). The program would sit idle waiting until you maximize the screen and click on OK. /exit Exit WinSince once the initial file search is done ("batch mode"). This allows you to set up WinSince to perform a single task and then exit. If /exit is left off, WinSince will remain active on the screen when it completes any task you assigned for it ("interactive mode"). /min Run minimized. This is handy for running WinSince as a batch job with /exit when you don't want to see it running. /log= Name of log file to write files found by WinSince. Example: /log=c:\winsince.log WinSince will write the type of search and the file details of all files found during the current session. This can be used in batch mode to show what files were found, and in interactive mode to create a list of files, for later printing or analysis. If free disk space falls under 500,000 bytes the log file is automatically closed, so pick a drive with lots of space for the log file: it uses about 80 characters for each file found during the searches. Note: errors occuring during a search are usually written to the log file, preficed with ">> ". /append Append to an existing log file, as specified in /log qualifier. If the log file does not exist it is created. My personal preference for interactive file management is to always specify /log on the command line but without the /append. It barely slows things down and is often very handy for checking details. To set up WinSince to use the command line switches, use the File | Properties menu item in the Program Manager to modify the WinSince command line. Ie. instead of running C:\WINSINCE\WINSINCE.EXE you might change it to show C:\WINSINCE\WINSINCE.EXE /DIR=C:\ /FILETYPE=*.BAT /SEARCH You can create multiple instances (icons) for WinSince, each one adapted to do the file searching and actions that you need done. The command line switches can be combined to do a variety of tasks that range from customizing the startup file type to automatically copying files between directories. In the following examples, the command line qualifiers are spread over two lines for easier reading. In the Program Manager File Properties all qualifiers are on the single line available. Example 1: You are interested in seeing a list of all TXT files in particular areas: WINSINCE.EXE /DIR=C:\MYWORK /FILETYPE=*.TXT /SUBDIR /CLEARDATE /SEARCH This tells WinSince to look down in all subdirectories starting from C:\MYWORK for files with the extension TXT, and to ignore the creation date, ie. find all .TXT files regardless of creation date. Since no /ACTION is given, WinSince will display the list of files when it appears, leaving it up to you to view the list and possibly choose an Action at that time. Example 2: You want to review or edit TXT files changed since yesterday, and create a log file showing the list of the files found: WINSINCE.EXE /DIR=C:\MYWORK /FILETYPE=*.TXT /ACTION=3 /MIN /EXIT /SEARCH /LOG=C:\MYWORK\CHECK.RPT /SINCE=-1 This tells WinSince to look only in the C:\MYWORK directory for files with the extension TXT that have been created since yesterday. The /SINCE=-1 tells WinSince that you are using a relative date of -1, ie. one day in the past. On each of these TXT files, WinSince will run Action number 3, which in the distribution version of WinSince runs the Windows NOTEPAD editor on the selected file. (You may customize all Actions to do whatever you want if you don't like the defaults). Since /MIN is specified, each Notepad session will appear as an icon, ready for you to work on when ready. Since /EXIT is specified, WinSince itself will never appear to you: it will just start up the Notepad sessions and then exit. The list of files found, along with their dates and sizes, will be put into C:\MYWORK\CHECK.RPT, as requested in the /LOG command. This is an Ascii file suitable for later editing or printing. Example 3: You want to copy TXT files changed since January 2nd 1993 to a safe directory, and create a log file showing the list of the files found. This is a similar example to Example 2 except that a specific date has been selected, and the Action is 7 (Xcopy, "Copy Save"): WINSINCE.EXE /DIR=C:\MYWORK /FILETYPE=*.TXT /ACTION=7 /MIN /EXIT /SEARCH /LOG=C:\MYWORK\CHECK.RPT /SINCE=01-02-1993 This tells WinSince to look only in the C:\MYWORK directory for files with the extension TXT that have been created since January 2nd 1993. The /SINCE=01-02-1993 tells WinSince that you are using an absolute date. Action 7 is defined in the distribution kit as XCOPY %D:\%P\%F C:\SAVE\%P\ . If we use C:\MYWORK\HELLO.TXT as one of the files found, it would be copied to C:\SAVE\MYWORK\HELLO.TXT . In the Edit screen you can set the Window Format to Minimized if you don't want to see the copying occur on the screen. Setting up multiple icons for WinSince on the Windows desktop As you come up with your own list of file tasks that you would like to automate, you can add copies of the WinSince icon within its Windows group. To do this, hold down the Ctrl key while you click and drag the WinSince icon to a free spot within its group. Modify its File Properties with the command line qualifiers, and change its title to show the meaning of the task it does. For example, I have a WinSince icon set up to look at the log file. Its command line reads: WinSince.exe /dir=c:\ /filetype=WinSince.log /cleardate /action=3 /exit This launches the Notepad editor to edit the log file, then exits, to leave you to browse the log. I have the Title set to Edit Log If you have multiple WinSince logs for various purposes, you can use /subdir or /drives= to search for them all and to pop up edit sessions for each of them. Warning: You have complete flexibility in creating and running your Actions. This also means that you must exercise care in using them. Testing your Actions in interactive mode on copies of files is a good way to be sure that the /Action and other command line qualifiers do what you want on the right files. Be mindful of how many files may be found in a search: you could run out of memory or disk space.