On certain windows systems I work on for a job the windows explorer is unable to display file extensions and is stuck in icon view. Pretty much makes the explorer useless. It even removes file extensions from other application window titles. Wow, somebody really had something against file extensions.
My solution is to just go back to dos-style file management at the command line. Arduous, but can be trusted.
The other problem I have on these systems is that windows search is also non-functional. Are there any native command line utilities to find files in windows? "find" finds text in files but I could not think of any other commands... IFEXIST with wildcards perhaps?
I cannot install applications from third parties (other file browsers or search applications) to solve either problem.
I have no idea where microsoft gets their ideas on usability. Why the hell would anyone want a file browser to not show file extensions at all and to only show huge icons representing files with no useful information whatsoever?
I can't imagine how anyone could work like that. The command line is infinitely preferable to a non-functional explorer.