Xplorer2 file manager (Windows) - Lifehacker

Lifehacker posted my favorite file manager as their "download of the day" on Friday: Xplorer2

There are so many reasons why this little app is better than the built-in Windows Explorer

1. Two panes - This makes it so much clearer to copy files from one directory to another.  Xplorer2 has handy buttons for "copy to" and "move to" which make file transfers a breeze.
2. Easy bookmarks.  Windows Explorer does bookmarks (favorites) too, but they're much easier to use with Xplorer.  Xplorer gives you a number of ways to organize your bookmarks and, most importantly allows you to assign a keyboard shortcut to each of them.  It's so easy to run around one's file system this way, rather than trying to mouse all over the place.
3. Easily rename files - If you've ever ripped a CD that didn't have any .mp3 tags, or wanted to batch rename a whole bunch of photos you won't find an easier way than with Xplorer2.  You can use special tokens to append a counter, a date or a number of other things to your bulk file rename.  In the above example I'm renaming a book-on-tape that I ripped.  The character $01 will add an auto-counter to the rename.

There is a lot of functionality built into this free file manager.  One of LifeHacker's reader's summarized all of the keyboard shortcuts in a great chart on the post. Check it out from Zabkat.