Any way to make drag/drop a Copy by default for all cases?

[NoelC]

If you're on the same drive, in File Explorer a drag operation is a Move, while if you're dragging from one drive and onto another it becomes a Copy operation by default.

This is nothing new, and I didn't just discover it. However, for the umpteenth time I managed to move a file instead of copying it and it finally occurred to me to seek a remedy. Unfortunately, though the question has been asked online in a number of places, there doesn't seem to be an easy tweak.  None that I spotted anyway.

I don't know what small-minded Microsoft person thought that making an operation fundamentally different depending on source and target, but it is what it is. And it sometimes catches even the most seasoned Windows users off guard.

I was wondering if anyone here has discovered a tweak that would just make a drag operation a Copy by default always.  Ideally it would just work the same as dragging between different drives.

Thanks!

-Noel

[GrofLuigi]

This is one thing Microsoft got right. I wouldn't want my file to take off to a removable drive, which can be of course removed, and leave my computer so easily. And on the same drive the move operation is just a matter of few small writes to the mft, it's quick and painless, and I usually don't want multiple copies on the same drive. It all seems logical to me.

 

I don't know of a way to alter the defaults, but maybe you could use CTRL or SHIFT or right click? You probably already knew that.

Edited February 18, 2016 by GrofLuigi

[NoelC]

Thanks, but...

 

Getting it right, in my opinion, would be to have it be a COPY by default in all cases, which is what I would like to accomplish.  Voila, the file doesn't leave the drive, nor does it leave its original folder unless you do something special.

 

Yes, I know about the modifier keys, and right-click dragging.

 

Edit:  Thanks to xpclient on another forum, per the site listed below the tweak to do exactly what I'm wanting is a couple of easy registry modifications.

 

Info from:  http://winaero.com/blog/set-the-default-drag-and-drop-action-in-windows-10-windows-8-and-windows-7/

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\*]"DefaultDropEffect"=dword:00000001[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\AllFilesystemObjects]"DefaultDropEffect"=dword:00000001

-Noel

Edited February 18, 2016 by NoelC