Why can’t I copy large files over 4GB to my USB flash drive?

The capacity of your external flash drive is large: 8GB, 16GB, or more. There is enough free space on the drive. You can copy the smaller files to the external drive just fine. Yet, when you attempt to copy a large file (4GB or larger) to the external drive, Windows gives you an error (such as: There is not enough free space on the drive, or similar.) Does this sound familiar?

If you experience such a problem, most probably it’s caused by the fact that your flash drive is formatted with the FAT32 file system. This type of a file system has a built-in limitation on the size of the files that it may contain. Although the total size of the files that you can copy to a FAT32 drive could be as large as 2TB (or the physical capacity of the drive, whichever is smaller), the size of each individual file may not exceed 4GB.

This limitation may sound silly: why would anyone design a system that would not allow for the larger files? The problem is, when the FAT32 file system was designed (that was back in the days of Windows 95), no one anticipated that we would have such large files in use today. Or, maybe the designers hoped that by the time such large files become common, the use of the FAT32 system would be replaced by the more modern systems.

In any case, how to solve the problem of copying the 4GB files? Easy: you need to replace the FAT32 file system on the drive with the NTFS file system. The latter does not have the 4GB file size limitation, and it also allows for many other functions not supported by FAT32: file security, encryption, compression, etc.

One caveat, however: the older versions of Windows (such as Windows 95, 98, or Windows Millennium, remember those?) do not support the NTFS file system. If you plan on using the drive with such old computers, then DO NOT format the drive with NTFS, because you won’t be able to get the old Windows to recognize it anyway. If, however, you only plan on using the drive with the more recent versions of Windows, such as Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows Vista, and of course Windows 7, such computers should work with the NTFS drives just fine.

How to change the drive from FAT32 to NTFS format?

There are several ways to go. If the drive is empty or contains no important files of yours, the easiest way is to use the Windows Format command to format the drive with the NTFS file system. Specifically:

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1. Attach the external flash drive to the computer, wait for Windows to recognize it and assign a new drive letter to it.

2. Open the Computer folder and locate the drive letter assigned to the flash drive you want to format with NTFS (in the example below, it’s drive F:)

3. Before continuing, open the drive in a window and make sure it’s empty or does not contain any important files, because after you format a drive, all information that was on it will be erased! If there are files on the drive that you want to keep, take this opportunity to copy them over to the hard drive or some other drive.

4. If you are sure that the external drive contains no important files of yours, go back to the Computer folder, and right click on the icon of the external drive:

(Click to enlarge)

5. Select Format from the menu, and then choose the formatting options:

6. Make sure to select NTFS in the File System drop-down list. That’s what determines the kind of a file system that the drive should have. Also, you may want to select the Quick Format option, which should speed up the formatting process quite considerably.

7. Press Start, and Windows should warn you once again about erasing any existing information on the drive (see step 3 above). Again, if you are sure the drive does not contain any irreplaceable documents, confirm that you want to proceed with the formatting:

8. If you’ve selected the Quick format option, the formatting should take no longer than a minute or two.

As a result, you should have the same drive, but now it should have the NTFS files system on it. Now you should be able to copy the files larger than 4GB to the drive just fine.

In addition to formatting a drive with the NTFS file system, Windows also offers a way to convert a FAT32 drive to NTFS. The difference is that the conversion process would keep the existing files on the drive. See Windows Help and Support of your computer for the instructions on how to do the conversion.

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P.S. Our encryption software USBCrypt can create a NTFS-formatted Virtual Encrypted Disk even if the host drive is formatted with FAT32. This suggests yet another solution: instead of formatting the host disk with NTFS, you can instead use USBCrypt to create a NTFS-formatted Virtual Encrypted Disk. If you do that, then in addition to breaking the 4GB file size barrier, you would also get the strong security and password protection for files you put inside of the Virtual Encrypted Disk. See the USBCrypt web page for more information or to download a free 30-day trial.

P.P.S. If you only need to transfer a large file from one computer to another, you can get by with the FAT format if you use a file splitter utility, like the one included in our file manager AB Commander. Using its Split command, you can split a large file into smaller chunks (say, 2GB each). Such chunks can be put on a FAT-formatted drive without a problem. Then, on the destination computer, use the Merge command to combine the chunks together into the original file. Of course, if you want to open the file directly from the external FAT drive, this won’t help you, but just to transfer the file between Windows computers should work fine.

P.P.P.S. Here is what to do if Windows does not offer the NTFS format option. 

If you want to link to this article, you can use this HTML code: Why can’t I copy large files over 4GB to my USB flash drive?

Source: http://www.winability.com/why-cant-i-copy-large-files-over-4gb-to-my-usb-flash-drive/

Install multiple programs at once with these convenient tools

If you ever had to set up a new Windows computer from scratch, you know how time consuming it can be to install all the programs you need on the machine.
While you could use specifically prepared Windows images to install all the required programs automatically during the installation of the operating system, it is not something that most users do as the process itself is rather technical.
Things are easy if you use portable software predominantly, as you can simply copy all the programs you require from one source (a DVD, Flash Drive, other storage devices) to the system and be done with that.
Some programs are not available as portable versions though, and not everyone wants to use them either. This would mean to run installers left and right on the system, carefully monitoring the installation process to make sure that adware does not slip by, until all programs are installed.
A better way, at least when it comes to popular applications and programs, is to use multi-installers.

Ninite

Ninite is a simple tool that you configure on the project website. Basically, all you need to do is select the programs that you want to install on your system on the homepage, and click on the get installer button afterwards to create a special installer for the selection.
The service supports over 100 different programs for Windows currently including Chrome, Firefox, Malwarebytes Anti-Malware, Eclipse, VLC Media Player, 7-Zip, TeamViewer, KeePass 2 Everything, or SumatraPDF.







Ninite promises that the installer will always include the latest version of the selected program, and that individual program installers won't include toolbars and other third-party offers. It downloads the programs from the official developer website, and will check digital signatures or hashes to verify the authenticity of the application.
All programs are downloaded and installed without user interaction, and the custom Ninite installer can be run again at a later point in time to install program updates if available.

Chocolatey

Chocolatey is a package manager similar to apt-get, but for Windows. It offers more packages and features than Ninite, but is more complicated to use as you run the commands from the command prompt.
This becomes obvious right from the get go as you need to run a command from an elevated command prompt to install Chocolatey on the system.
You can then browse the available packages on the official website and install those that you want added to your system.
The core command to install a package is "choco install" followed by the package name. Chocolatey supports additional commands or installer arguments that you can make use of, for instance to add parameters to the installer or install multiple programs at once by adding their names after the install command, e.g. choco install notepadplusplus googlechrome atom 7zip.
Chocolatey is powerful but at the same time not nearly as easy to use as Ninite. Good news is that it supports thousands of programs instead of just the hundred that Ninite supports, bad news that it will take longer to set it up and find the correct names for the programs to get them installed.

Silent Install Helper

Unlike the programs that we have reviewed so far, Silent Install Helper does not limit you in regards to the applications that you can install using it.
While that is a positive, it means more work for you initially as you need to download the program installers to your system first before you can create a new batch installer job using Silent Install Helper.
What you do is add all the installers you have accumulated to the application. The program attempts to detect unwanted offers and will display information about those to you in its interface when it recognizes those. While that is not a surefire way of making sure junk does not get installed on your system, it may help you automate the declining of said offers.
You can customize the program installer, for instance by running commands before or after installation, or setting the unwanted software flag.
We have reviewed Silent Install Helper back in 2015, and suggest you check out the review for additional information.
Silent Install Helper does not restrict you to a collection of programs. Instead, it lets you create batch installers for any program you may come across.

Silent Install Builder

This is a commercial program but a fully functional evaluation version is provided on the developer website.
Each package you create contains one or multiple installer files or scripts that you want executed on the system.
As the name suggests, packages will be installed silently in the background, and you can create unattended installations as well.
Silent Install Builder recognizes popular application installers, and provides you with options to automate the installation of software using scripting language which allows you to record an installation process (which is mostly handy for installations on multiple computer systems).
As is the case with Silent Install Helper, this program requires that you download all programs that you want to install in one operation before you can do so.

RuckZuck

RuckZuck is a portable program for the Windows operating system that you can use to install multiple software programs or to update them.
Simple mark the programs that you want to install on your system, and hit the "start installation" button afterwards.
RuckZuck will download the applications using PowerShell and install them on the system once downloaded.
Programs are sorted into groups like Imaging, Audio or Security, and you will find many popular programs listed by it. All in all, a couple hundred programs are supported currently by the application.

Closing Words

All multi-software installers are useful. Ninite is without doubt the easiest to use of the four reviewed here but it is also the program that is limited the most in terms of programs that you can install using it.


Source: http://www.ghacks.net/2016/03/24/install-multiple-programs/

10 Best Programs to Replace Notepad

Notepad is one of my favorite programs in Windows and that’s why Microsoft has always included it in every version of Windows shipped since Windows 1.0, which was almost 30 years ago. Not only does it have a long history, but it also has maintained its clean and simple interface. Notepad is a simple text editor that can come in handy when you don’t need any text formatting for your document.
However, there are occasions where a few extra features would make the text editor much more useful without being overkill. Microsoft Word is what I would consider overkill as it’s mainly a word processor, not a text editor. In this article, I’m going to mention 10 of the most popular alternatives to Notepad and why they can make your life a bit easier.


Notepad++





Notepad++ is probably the most popular text editor that is used outside of Notepad. It has a whole bunch of features that make it great for simple or complex tasks. If you just want Notepad with a couple of extra features like line numbers, better search, multi-tabbed interface, spell check, etc, then you can just use Notepad++ out of the box as is.
However, the main features of Notepad++ that make it really useful are syntax highlighting when writing code, syntax folding, multi-editing, aut0-completion, WYSIWYG for printing and lots more. This tool is very popular amongst coders and it supports a whole bunch of languages including C, C++, C#, Objective C, Pascal, HTML, and XML to name just a few. Notepad++ is also actively developed and they release updates fairly often.


EditPad Lite




My second favorite would have to be EditPad Lite because it’s actually more like Notepad than Notepad++ is. It doesn’t do syntax highlighting for code like Notepad++ does, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing, especially if you’re not a coder. I would actually recommend this program over Notepad++ for those looking for a Notepad replacement, but don’t care for the code highlighting features. This program is also regularly updated.
Here are some of the strong points of EditPad Lite that make it a better text editor than Notepad:
– Allows you to open many text files at once (unlimited)
– Includes an extensive search and place feature that is better than any other editor
– Includes a feature called Clip Collection that stores a list of text snippets for reuse later
– Automatic auto-save and backup features so that you never lose your work
– Unlimited undo and redo even if you save the file

PSPad

PSPad is another tool that is geared more towards coders and therefore includes features like syntax highlighting, built-in FTP client, macro recorder, user-defined highlighting, full HEX editor, integrated CSS editor, etc.
In terms of normal text editor features, PSPad includes a spell checker, auto-correction, text difference, search and replace, multiple tabs, etc. I mention a bit higher than some of the other editors because it has been updated recently. However, PSPad is ad-supported so you have to be careful when you install it because it will ask you to install other programs during the install. You have to click Decline about 4 times, which is a bit annoying.

Notepad2

Notepad2 literally looks almost exactly like the Windows Notepad, except for a few extra features like syntax highlighting for several web languages, regular expression search and replace, rectangular selection using mouse, long line marker, auto indent, brace matching, etc.
Notepad2 is the best option for those who want Notepad with just a couple of extra options plus the ability to write formatted code in languages like HTML, PHP, ASP, JS, CSS, Java, SQL, Perl, and more. The program hasn’t been updated since 2012, but it’s still a decent option.

TED Notepad

TED Notepad is a basic text editor with a simple and clean interface. It’s got all the basic text editing features like line number and multiple undo/redo, outside file modifications, aut0-save and recovery, etc.
In addition, it has a great search feature, permanent clipboards, auto-completion, and a bunch of text-transforming tools. Overall, I really liked using TED Notepad and was surprised by its usefulness.

DocPad

DocPad is a newer application that is a fairly good alternative to Notepad. It focuses more on text editing features and isn’t a good option for coders. It supports bookmarking, block indentation, character conversion, drag and drop support, print preview, file history, search and replace, skinnable UI, trim trailing spaces, word wrap, etc.
I have this program higher on the list because it’s supports the latest operating systems and has a good feature set.

ATPad

ATPad hasn’t been updated since around 2010, but it’s got a nice interface and good features. It’s actually the most useful if you need to work with multiple files in a tabbed interface. It’s got all the basic text editing functions like line numbers, word wrapping, bookmarks, displaying white spaces, unlimited redo/undo, text snippets, etc. It doesn’t require any installation either.

NoteTab Light

NoteTab Light isn’t the most powerful text editor out there, but it’s a great Notepad replacement. The program aims to be a text editor and a coding tool, but the free version does not include syntax highlighting and it only supports HTML and CSS.
In terms of text editing, it supports text snippets, clipboard pasting, in-text calculations, and variable-width fonts. Unfortunately, a few key features like a spell checker, word count, print preview, and multi-level undo/redo are not available in the free version. Since a lot of the free alternatives have these extra features, I’m listing this one closer to the bottom of the list.

GetDiz

GetDiz is a notepad replacement app that has a bit of a different look and feel than the rest of the text editors out there. By default, the background is dark blue and the text is white, though you can change this in the settings.
As the name suggests, the program displays DIZ and NFO files with enhanced functionality and the program can also display ASCII art. You can also save out text, DIZ or NFO files as GIF images.

FluentNotepad

FluentNotepad is a notepad replacement that is supposed to look like Office with the Ribbon UI, but it’s quite basic. Since it hasn’t been updated since 2010, I don’t recommend this program too highly. Also, the ribbon UI only has one tab and the developer never added anything else after that.
The only good thing it can do is syntax highlighting for 10 coding languages and opening multiple tabs. It doesn’t have very many text editing features and not many code manipulation features either.
So those are probably enough programs for anyone to find the right replacement to Notepad. It basically comes down to whether you need syntax highlighting for coding or not. If you use a different program not mentioned here, let us know in the comments. Enjoy!


Source: http://www.online-tech-tips.com/cool-websites/notepad-replacement/