| The Windows Explorer allows files to be renamed easily, by single clicking on the name and then editing it; however, this can be quite tedious if there are many files to be renamed. (Attempting to select a range of files and then using right-click + Rename doesn’t work. Only the last file in the range is renamed.) Command Prompt to the rescue. This tip will show you how simple it is to use the REN command in the command prompt to do a wildcard rename.
REN, of course, is short for rename. The REN takes the form of “REN oldfilename newfilename” (or, you can spell out RENAME, if you prefer). Both the old filename and the new file name can contain wildcards. Change Filename Extensions: Say, for example, you obtain a large set of ASCII files, all of which have names that end with a “.ASC” filename extension, but you need them to be named with “*.TXT” extensions instead. (In the following illustrations there are only two such files, but imagine that there are hundreds.) 
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