I use both Mac OS X and Windows XP, both old versions. On Mac OS X side, I use the venerable Tiger (Mac OS X 10.4), and XP is even older. No plan for purchasing new hardware for the near future, so I am stuck with those two old OSes.
Constantly switched between these two OSes, some observations noted here, just in case I need to revisit them.
1. Multiple file properties
With Windows Explorer in Windows XP, the multiple files are selected, use Alt-Enter (Property command) to show the properties, the result property window will show in a single dialog the summary information of all the selected files. With OS X Finder, Cmd-I (Get Info command) will open one info dialog for each file. If you happen to have 100 files selected, Cmd-I will get you mad pretty quick. To show the summary info in a single dialog as in the case of XP, one need to use the Cmd-Ctrl-I (Get Summary Info command).
Actually, it is better to summarize the following three commands in Tiger Finder:
Cmd-I (Get Info command) to show a static info window for the selected file(s). It will display the same information even when a different file is selected in Finder. When multiple files are selected, this command will display one info window for each selected file.
Cmd-Option-I (Show Inspector command) similar to Get Info command, but the info window is a floating window, which dynamically displays the currently selected file info. Choose a different file, the inspector display changes with the selection.
Cmd-Ctrl-I (Get Summary Info command) will display only one dialog, even when multiple files are selected. It will sum up the size of all the selected files.
With XP, Alt-Enter (Property command) is like Cmd-I and Cmd-Ctrl-I combined.
2. Spotlight Comments & XP comments
When showing the Get Info (or Show Inspector) window is open, there is a Spotlight Comments text box. One can tag the selected file, which is very useful for audio and video files, since they usually don’t have text content for the Spotlight to search. Spotlight Comments provide a convenient way to tag the audio and video files.
Although it is not well know, there is a similar text field for XP files:
Select a file, Alt-Enter to open the properties window, click the Summary tab, you will be able to enter the comments for the selected file. You can also display the comments in Windows Explorer Window by select the “comments” when right-click on the column header inside Windows Explorer window.
However, unlike Spotlight in OS X, it is not guaranteed that this filed will be searched in XP. The following link, summarized the difference between OS X and XP very well:
Indexing File Contents & Metadata - XvsXP.com, Mac OS X vs. Windows XP
