Quickly rename files in bulk with Windows XP/Vista

Here's a handy tip I found for Windows XP or Vista users who want to rename a handful of photos with ease.

Thanks go out to Sync-Blog for this great time saver

Stop me if this sounds familiar.

You spent the day taking photos of the kids playing in the snow, but when you copy them all to your hard drive the files are called something arbitrary such as IMG8942.jpg, IMG8943.jpg and so on.

If you're looking for a super fast way to rename these photos something more, well, relevant -- such as Fun in the Snow - January 09.jpg -- keep on reading.

- Open up a program such as Windows Explorer and highlight all the files you want to rename.

- Now, Press [F2] or right mouse-click on one of the files and select Rename.

3. You can now rename the first file and press Enter. Doing so changes all of the highlighted files to the same word but will be listed sequentially in parentheses, such as Snow Fun(1).jpg, Snow Fun(2).jpg, and so forth.

Simple batch renaming, huh?

On a related note, the free Windows Live Gallery lets you tag photos with searchable keywords, such as "snow," "kids," "michael," "2009," "January" and so on. When looking for a photo, simply type in relevant keywords to bring up the desired photo.