Stupid Proposal Tricks: Changing File Names With PowerShell

In today’s edition (the first one I think) of Stupid Proposal Tricks, I discuss how to change file names for proposal drafts.

It will help to understand my original working process:

• I edit files that include “DRAFT06” in the name.
• I zip all the “DRAFT06” files, distribute them to reviewers, and archive them.
• I then manually edit every file to change “DRAFT06” to “DRAFT07.”

This is a pain.

So I asked my buddy Google Gemini for help.

“In Windows 11 File Manager or whatever it’s called today, is there an easy way to edit a collection of filenames to change the filename text “DRAFT06” to “DRAFT07″?”

Google Gemini gave me two options, and I chose the first.

“You can run a quick one-line command to swap the text across every file in the folder without installing anything.

“Open the folder containing your files in File Explorer.

“Click on the address bar at the top, type powershell, and press Enter.

“In the blue/black PowerShell window that opens, copy and paste this command and press Enter:

“Get-ChildItem | Rename-Item -NewName { $_.Name -replace ‘DRAFT06′,’DRAFT07’ }

“Every file with DRAFT06 in its name will instantly update to DRAFT07.”

And…it worked.

Back to cranking out proposal drafts.