StExBar is a tiny freeware tool which extends Windows Explorer with some handy features.

The program has been around for years, but it’s just been updated to work fully on Windows 10, so we grabbed a copy to see how it would perform.

Install StExBar and it immediately adds its own right-click menu to Explorer, but the toolbar will probably remain hidden until you enable it. In Windows 10 we clicked View > Options on the Explorer ribbon and selected StExBar.

The StExBar toolbar appears beneath the current folder path. It’s visually very basic – just some tiny icons with accompanying text – and includes the following features.

Console and PowerShell buttons open cmd.exe or PowerShell windows at the current folder.

A Command bar launches a cmd.exe window at the current folder with the command you specify. Type DIR, say, and a command window opens to display the results.

Edit or delete the built-in commands, or add new ones of your own

“Copy Paths” copies the full path of all selected files to the clipboard. The results are almost identical to the standard Windows option (hold down Shift, right-click a file, select Copy As Path) except the paths aren’t surrounded by quotes.

“Copy Names” copies only the names of the selected files (file.ext instead of c:\folder\file.ext.)

“Rename” batch-renames your selected files using regular expressions, probably the most powerful function here.

“Move to Subfolder” prompts you for a subfolder name, creates it and moves your selected files there.

Most of these options have their own hotkey. You can copy all selected file paths to the keyboard by pressing Ctrl+Shift+C, for instance. Change this to some other key combination if necessary.

You probably won’t need some, or even most of these functions, but the menu is entirely configurable. If you’re happy with the regular Windows “copy as path” method, feel free to delete the StExBar version.

You can also add custom commands of your own, each with their own icon and hotkey. The PC world has a million other launchers, but what’s unusual here is you can have StExBar list only commands which match the current Explorer window.

If you’d like to launch a file compare tool, for instance, you could tell StExBar to only list your command when Explorer is displaying a regular file system folder, and you’ve selected exactly two files: very convenient.

StExBar is a free tool for Windows Vista and later.