How can I do a mass file rename in Windows?

Solution 1:

I like Bulk File Rename

Solution 2:

I like CyLog’s WildRename. It supports wildcards and regular expressions for file selection and string substitutions. It also includes logging, case-conversion, a counter ability (eg rename files to blah1.txt, blah2.txt, blah3.txt, etc.), and even rename simulation (see the results without making any actual changes).

One of the main uses I had for it was specifically to remove the [1] from files that I downloaded with IE (or the (1) from files saved in Chromium). This is simple with WildRen, just create regex string-substitution rule (which you can enable or disable as needed, so you can keep it permanently):

Replace:
  \(\d{1,2}\)\.
With:
  .

It will delete all occurrences of parentheses surrounding one or two numeric digits. (And you can go from there.)