It does not need to be installed, just unzip it to any location.
Download and install FileMeta: https://github.com/Dijji/FileMeta/releases/tag/v1.6
Run CustomWindowsProperties.exe. The following window appears.
The first thing you must do is select a folder where CustomWindowsProperties will save its data. Click the "Choose Save Folder" button, navigate to a folder, and then click the Select Folder button.
We're going to make a copy of an installed property, and give it a different name. In the lower left pane, which shows Installed Properties, select the property System.* > Commment.
Now the window looks as follows:
The Comment property is highlighted in the lower left Installed pane and the bottom center pane shows the attributes of that installed property.
Click the "Copy^" button that appears just over that bottom center pane. Now the Editor pane, which is the top middle pane, shows the same attributes as the installed Comment pane. But I am going to give it a new "Canonical Name" and a new "Display Name". Enter text in those boxes as shown below. The Canonical Name must be in this format - with a group name, a period, followed by the property name.
Now click the Save button that appears just below the top center Editor pane.
The Comment3 property is now "Saved" in CustomWindowsProperties, and is shown in the top left pane listing "Saved" Properties.
Right-click the new property and click Install.
The new property now appears in the lower left pane listing Installed Properties.
Now run FileMetaAssociationManager.exe. The following window appears. I'm going to create a Custom Profile of properties. Click the Custom Profiles button on the left sidebar:
The Custom Profile Definition window appears, with some instructions on top:
Clear the instructions. I'm going to create a new profile to hold just the property we just created.
In the leftmost "Profiles" pane, right-click "Custom" and click New Profile. A new profile with the name "New Profile" will appear under Custom. Right-click that and then Rename, and give it a new name. I'll name it Test2. Make sure that the new profile is highlighted in the Profiles list.
You add properties to the Profile by dragging them from the Properties list to the Full Details list, the Preview Panel list, and the Info tip list. But before you can do that, you must drop a Property Group to the Full Details box. I just dropped the General property group from the Property Groups list to the Full Details box:
Next find the property you created in the Properties list (under the Property Groups list), and drag it under the Property Group in the Full Details box:
You can now click the Apply button and then the OK button to return to the File Meta Association Manager windows.
First I click a File Extension in the File Extensions list. Multiple extensions can be selected. I have selected the .txt file extension. Then in the left side bar, I click on the dropdown list of properties profiles, marked "2.". I click on the "Test2" properties profile that I just created:
Next I click the "Add File Meta Handler" button. Once I have done that, "File Meta Property Handler" appears next to the ".txt" extension in the File Extensions list:
Now click the "Restart Explorer" button.
Now I open Windows File Explorer and create a test .txt file somewhere. I've created one called "filemetatest3.txt". I right click on that file, and then Properties. In the Properties dialog, I click the Details tab. The "General" property group appears, and underneath is the "Comment3" property that I created:
I click on the space to the right of the label "Comment3", enter some text, and press Enter:
Click Apply and then OK to exit the Properties dialog.
Now you must shut down and restart Everything so that it can find the new property you created.
Now in Everything, search for and select the file you added the property to:
Right-click the Everything Result List column header line, then click Add Columns. The Select Property dialog appears. Select "Windows Property System" in the left pane. Scroll down the list of properties on the right and find the property you created:
Click OK to return to the Everything Results List. The custom property you created now appears in an Everything column, and the property value you entered for the file appears in that column:
This is obviously just for starters, to show the basics of how it works.
Before concluding, I run the 7-Zip File Manager and select the file to which I assigned the custom property value. Then I right-click on that file and click Alternate Streams:
7-Zip shows the alternate streams for the file:
"Koyatht44imeudk2G4asc1u1Jd" is the name of the FileMeta data stream. The first character in the name is actually Hex 05. The "SummaryInformation" stream actually surprises me; I think it is there because I created "Comment3" property is a copy of the System*>Comment property. Finally, the "{4c8cc155-6c1e-11d1-8e41-00c04fb9386d}" stream is a "control stream" : "A file that has one or more property sets associated with it through the alternate stream binding MUST have a control stream, which is an alternate stream with the name "{4c8cc155-6c1e-11d1-8e41-00c04fb9386d}".
There is obviously a LOT more to using CustomWindowsProperties and FileMeta, and it's explained well on the Github site. This tutorial is just for starters. Sadly, "Dijji", the author of these programs, had multiple sclerosis and passed away in May 2021. https://github.com/Dijji/FileMeta/issues/134 If he had survived I bet he would have greatly refined these programs. To my knowledge there is no other program out there that enables users to create their own custom windows properties, and no other program that provides a way to attach custom properties to files. It would be great if some genius would fork these Github repositories and pick up where Dijji left off.