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When you work on a computer, you will create files and folders to store your work and use it later on. A file is a resource for storing information that can then be opened and used with the help of a computer program. To make it simpler, imagine the file to be the digital counterpart of a paper document. Similarly, a folder is the digital equivalent of the file folder used in offices. Libraries are a new concept that was introduced in Windows 7 and used in all subsequent versions of Windows. A library is a virtual collection of folders on your computer.

Files Files can store any kind of data. For example, Word files will store documents created with Microsoft Word. Documents can include text, graphics, tables, and so on. Images are also files – the digital counterpart of pictures. Images can be opened with programs that are designed to deal with images and render them on the screen. Videos and movies are also stored as files, and they can be viewed with specialized programs that render them on the screen.

Files can be created by the user, by the applications they are using, and by the operating system. They are generally stored in folders with different names and sizes.

Folders Folders are a way of organizing files and other folders on your computer. You can think of a folder as a collection of references to other files and folders that are inside it. Some people also refer to them as directories. Folders always have a hierarchical tree-like structure. One folder contains several files and other folders (also named subfolders). Its subfolders have their own files and subfolders, and so on (Figure 1.11).

FIGURE 1.11 A folder and its contents displayed by Windows Explorer

Libraries Libraries do not exist as actual folders on the computer but only as references to one or more folders and the files stored inside them. Libraries are named using the type of files and folders they tend to store: Documents, Pictures, Music, and Videos. The Documents library will link to the folders where you store your documents, the Pictures library will link to the folders where you store your pictures, and so on.

Libraries are useful because they have direct shortcuts throughout the operating system, and you can easily access them. Also, their content is automatically indexed by Windows so that you can quickly search for the files you are looking for. Searching for files that are not part of a library generally takes longer than when searching for files that are part of a library.

Accessing Your Files and Folders

All operating systems provide an easy way for you to access your files and folders. In Windows 7, you can use Windows Explorer. To open this program, click the folder icon on the taskbar – the transparent bar that runs across the bottom of the screen. You can see the folder icon in Figure 1.12.

FIGURE 1.12 The shortcuts on the Windows taskbar, including the one for Windows Explorer

The left side of Windows Explorer is named the Navigation pane. There you will see several sections and shortcuts to different locations on your computer. Whatever is selected in the Navigation pane determines what is shown on the right pane (Figure 1.13).

FIGURE 1.13 The Windows Explorer window

By default, Libraries is selected. There you will see the four default libraries that exist in Windows 7: Documents, Music, Pictures, and Videos. To make things easy for you, it is best to save your documents in the Documents library, your pictures in the Pictures library, and so on.

In order to successfully navigate through your computer's files and folders, you have to learn how Windows Explorer works. First, let's take a look at its window and each of its elements, as they are highlighted in Figure 1.14.

FIGURE 1.14 The different navigation elements of the Windows Explorer window

Now let's discuss them one by one:

Address Bar On the very top of the Windows Explorer window you will see a bar that initially says Libraries. As you navigate through your computer, this bar will always tell you where you are on your computer.

Back and Forward On the left side of the address bar you have two buttons pointing left and right. The left button is for going back, and the right is for going forward through the folder structure in your computer.

Search Box On the right side of the address bar is a box that you can use to quickly search for a file or folder. If you enter the name of a file and press Enter on your keyboard, Windows will start searching for files and folders that correspond to the search term you are using.

Toolbar The toolbar is displayed just beneath the address bar. This bar includes contextual buttons depending on where you are on your computer. You will notice that as you browse your files and folders, the number of buttons available changes. The toolbar tries to adapt and present you with options that help you be more productive depending on what you are doing.

Menus On the left side of the toolbar you will find the Organize menu. As you can see, this menu has an arrow pointing downward. Each time you see that arrow for an item on the toolbar, it means that it is a menu that can be opened.

Views On the right side of the toolbar you will notice another button with an arrow pointing downward, signaling that it is actually a menu. If you click it, you will be able to change the way you view the files and folders displayed in the right pane. Your files and folders remain the same; only the way they are presented here changes, depending on which view you select. We will discuss views in more detail shortly.

Preview Pane On the right side of the toolbar, near the Views menu, you will find the button for enabling or disabling the Preview pane. When it's enabled, a third pane is displayed on the right side of the Windows Explorer window. When you select a file in the middle pane, you can see a preview of its content in this Preview pane. If you have a larger screen that can accommodate this pane, it is a good idea to enable it because it can be useful when navigating the files on your computer.

Arrows In the Navigation pane on the left side of the Windows Explorer window you will notice that many elements have a small arrow to the left of their name. You can use these arrows to expand or collapse the element. For example, if you click the arrow for Libraries, it will collapse them. Click it again and it will expand them.

Your computer stores not just your data but also lots of files and folders that are installed by the operating system and the applications that you are using. All this data is always stored in the Local Disk (C:) drive on your computer. You will always find this drive in the Navigation pane. Please note that the C: drive may have a different name because it can be easily customized, but on most computers it is named Local Disk.

When navigating this drive, you will see plenty of folders with names like Windows (this is where Windows is installed), Program Files (this is where applications are installed), or Users (this is where your user files and folders are stored as well as those of other users on the same computer). You can double-click any of these folders and explore their content. However, you should refrain from deleting or changing anything. Most of your work should be done in the Users folder. If you open it, you will see a subfolder for each user that has been created on your computer, and one of them will be yours. If you open your subfolder, then you will see your Documents, Pictures, and Music folders, and so on.

We mentioned earlier the concept of views. They are just different ways of viewing your files and folders. The views you can use in Windows Explorer are the following, as shown in Figure 1.15:

FIGURE 1.15 The views that are available in Windows Explorer

Extra Large Icons Displays the contents of your libraries and folders using very large icons. This view is generally useful for people with vision disabilities.

Large Icons Displays the contents of your libraries and folders using large icons. This view is useful when you want to see the pictures found on your computer and you want to see a preview of them instead of a small icon.

Medium Icons Displays the contents of your libraries and folders using medium icons.

Small Icons Displays the contents of your libraries and folders using small icons.

List Displays the contents of your libraries and folders in a list that contains only the name of each file and its respective icon.

Details Displays the contents of your libraries and folders by providing detailed information about each item, including its name, the date when it was last modified, its type, its size, and so on. This view is very useful when you want to learn more about each file and folder before opening it.

Tiles This view displays medium-sized icons for each file and folder, as well as information about their type and size.

Content When using this view, each file and folder are placed on a separate row. Each row has detailed information about each file and folder: the date when it was last modified, its size, its author, and so on.

You should definitely experiment with each view and learn how they work (Exercise 1.5) so that you can use them effectively depending on what you want to do.

EXERCISE 1.5

Using Views and the Preview Pane in Windows Explorer

1. On the taskbar, click the Folder icon.

2. In the Navigation pane, click Pictures in the Libraries section.

3. In the right pane, double-click Sample Pictures.

4. Click the Views menu and click Extra Large Icons.

Notice how the pictures are now displayed.

5. Click the Views menu again and then Details.

Notice how the way pictures are displayed has changed.

6. Click the Preview pane button. Note that a new pane appears on the right.

7. Click any picture in the middle pane to see a preview of it in the Preview pane.

8. Click the Preview pane button again to hide this pane.

9. Click the Views menu and choose Large Icons.

10. Click the X in the top-right corner of the Windows Explorer window to close it.

Understanding File Types

When working on your computer, you will create many types of files: documents, spreadsheets, presentations, music files, and so on. When you save a file, you are prompted to give a name to the file and choose a file type. If you get the file from somewhere else, it has already been assigned a file type.

When browsing your files in Windows Explorer, you can see the file type of each file when you are using the Content, Tiles, and Details views. The file type is generally denoted by a three- or four-letter extension that follows the filename and also by the icon used by Windows Explorer to display that file. For example, document.docx means a file named document with the extension .docx. The dot separates the name of the file from its extension. The file extension is hidden by default in Windows when viewing files, but it is added automatically when saving them.

You can opt to change the file type when multiple options are available and change from the default file extension to something else. In Figure 1.16 you can see Paint open and the options that are available for saving a file. To save a file, click the Save As option, choose a file type, and then type the name of the file. If you make changes to the same file later, you need only click Save.

FIGURE 1.16 The Save As options that are available in Paint

Some of the most common types of files are the following:

■ Microsoft Office files

■ Microsoft Word (.doc and .docx)

■ Microsoft PowerPoint (.ppt and .pptx)

■ Microsoft Excel (.xls and .xlsx)

■ Microsoft Publisher (.pub and .pubx)

■ Microsoft OneNote (.one)

■ Picture files

■ JPEG files

■ GIF files (.gif)

■ Bitmap files (.bmp)

■ PNG files (.png)

■ TIFF files (.tif and .tiff)

■ RAW files (.raw)

■ Music files

■ Windows audio files (.wav)

■ MP3 audio files (.mp3 and .m3u)

■ Windows Media audio files (.asx,wm, wma, and .wmx)

■ Free Lossless Audio Codec files (.flac)

■ AAC files (.aac)

■ Video files

■ Audio Video Interleaved files (.avi)

■ Motion JPEG files (.avi and .mov)

■ Windows Media files (.wm, wmv, and .asf)

■ Matroska multimedia files (.mkv)

■ Apple QuickTime files (.mov and .qt)

■ MPEG Movie files (.mp4, mov,m4v, mpeg,mpg, mpe,m1v,mp2, mpv2, mod,vob, and .m1v)

Other types of popular files are the following:

Executable Files (.exe) Executable files can be run with a double-click.

Text Files (.txt) Simple text documents without any kind of formatting.

Portable Document Format Files (.pdf) A very popular type of files that is generally used for sharing non-editable documents that need to look the same on all the devices on which they are used, no matter what operating system is used.

OpenOffice and LibreOffice Documents (.odt,.ott,.oth, and .odm) Documents created using free open-source office applications like OpenOffice and LibreOffice.

Managing Your Files and Folders

While working on your computer, it is better that you organize your work so that you will have an easier time finding the files you need later on. For starters, use the libraries provided by Windows 7 to store your files depending on their type. Save your pictures in the Pictures library, your documents in the Documents library, and so on.

Once things get too crowded, you will want to create your own folders and subfolders, move files around, and delete those that you do not need. Let's take each file and folder management activity and see how it is done:

Create a File You can create files from applications like Microsoft Office, but you can also create empty files directly from Windows Explorer. To do so, follow these steps:

1. Open the folder where you want to store the file.

2. Right-click anywhere in the available empty space and select New and then one of the available file types, as shown in Figure 1.17.

3. Type the name of the file and press Enter on your keyboard.

FIGURE 1.17 The types of files that can be created using the context menu in Windows Explorer

A new file is created, with the name and type you have provided. However, the file is empty because it has no contents. If you double-click it, you can open it and edit it in the appropriate application for files of that type. Don't forget to save your edits so that they are stored inside the file.

Create a Subfolder Subfolders are helpful when you want to better organize your files. You can create subfolders with different names and then move files into them, according to your way of organizing things. To create a subfolder, do the following:

1. Navigate to the desired parent folder and click New Folder on the Windows Explorer toolbar.

2. Type a name for the folder and press Enter on your keyboard.

Alternatively, you can use the keyboard shortcut Ctrl+Shift+N or right-click somewhere in the available empty space and select New and then Folder.

Copy You may want to copy a file or folder to another location. Here's how it is done:

1. Select the file or folder that you want to copy somewhere else.

2. Use the Copy command to copy it to a part of memory called the Clipboard.

The Clipboard holds this information temporarily so that you can paste it somewhere else. You'll want to use the Paste command immediately after you use the Copy command. This is because the Clipboard can hold only one thing at a time. If you copy another item, the previous one is removed from the Clipboard. When you use the Copy command, the original file or folder stays where it is and is not moved. When you use Paste after the Copy command, a copy of that item is created in the desired location.

There are several options for accessing the Copy command:

■ Click the file or folder you want to copy and use the keyboard shortcut Ctrl+C.

■ Click the file or folder you want to copy and from the Organize menu in Windows Explorer click Copy.

■ Right-click the file or folder to copy and click Copy (Figure 1.18).

FIGURE 1.18 The options available in the context menu when right-clicking a file

Paste Once you've copied something to the Clipboard, using one of the methods shared earlier, you can use the Paste command to perform the actual task of copying the item to its new location.

1. Navigate to the location where you'd like to paste the file or folder.

This might be a new subfolder you created, a library, or even the Desktop.

2. Then use one of the following options:

■ Use the keyboard shortcut Ctrl+V.

■ Click the Organize menu in Windows Explorer and then click Paste.

■ Right-click the empty area inside the folder or on the Desktop and click Paste (Figure 1.19).

FIGURE 1.19 The Paste option in the context menu

Cut This command works like the Copy command, except that the selected file or folder is removed from its original location and can be moved to the new one. Be careful when using Cut and make sure that you use Paste immediately after. The problem with using Cut is that if anything fails during the moving process (after you use Paste), then you will lose the selected file or folder. That's why it is better to use the Copy command instead and then delete the selected file or folder from the original location once its copy has been made in the new location. There are several options for accessing the Cut command:

■ Click the file or folder to cut and use the keyboard shortcut Ctrl+X.

■ Click the file or folder to cut and from the Organize menu in Windows Explorer click Cut.

■ Right-click the file or folder to cut and click Cut.

Move Here You can use the Move Here command to move a file or folder. It works like Cut and Paste; the item will be moved, and the original item will no longer appear in its original location. To use this command, follow these steps:

1. Right-click the file or folder to move, and hold down the right mouse button while you drag the file on top of its new location, in the Navigation pane.

2. Let go of the right mouse button and click Move Here (Figure 1.20).

FIGURE 1.20 The Move Here option

Alternatively, you can use the Cut and Paste commands for the same effect.

Rename You can rename both files and folders. This can be done in several ways:

■ Select the item by clicking it. Press the F2 key on the keyboard. Type the new name.

■ Click the item one time, wait a second or two, and then click it again. Type the new name.

■ Right-click the item to rename and click Rename. Type the new name.

Delete You can remove both files and folders from your computer. This can be done in several ways. Here's one method:

1. Select the item by clicking it.

2. Press the Delete key on the keyboard and confirm that you want to delete that item.

The item is moved to the Recycle Bin and can be recovered in case you decide that you need it again.

You can also do the following:

1. Right-click the item to delete.

2. Click Delete and confirm that you want to delete that item.

Alternatively, you can drag the item to the Recycle Bin using the mouse.

To delete an item without moving it to the Recycle Bin, follow these steps:

1. Select the item by clicking it.

2. Then, hold down the Shift key and the Delete key.

But be aware that this way the item cannot be recovered if you need it again.

Create a Shortcut If you need to access a file or folder from another location but you do not want to copy or move it, you can create a shortcut. You can tell which files are shortcuts because they have an arrow in their icon and Shortcut included in the filename. Shortcuts are only references to other files and folders and do not hold any data except for what's required to point their target location. The option to create a shortcut is available from the options that appear when you right-click the item. There are several ways of creating a shortcut. Here's the first way:

1. Right-click the item you want to create a shortcut for.

2. Click Create Shortcut.

The shortcut is created in the same location.

3. You can now cut and paste that shortcut to another location like the Desktop.

The original file should be kept in its initial location; otherwise the shortcut won't work.

You can also do the following:

1. Right-click the file or folder.

2. Click Send To and then click Desktop (Create Shortcut), as shown in Figure 1.21.

A shortcut is created for that item on the Desktop.

FIGURE 1.21 The Send To menu in Windows Explorer

And finally, you can use this method:

1. Press and hold down Ctrl+Shift while you drag that item to the location you want to create a shortcut to.

2. Release the item in the location where you want to create a shortcut for it.

Search for a File There are many ways to search for a specific file, provided you know something about it. One way is to use the Search box on the top-right of the Windows Explorer window:

1. Select the library or folder where you want to perform the search.

2. Click inside the Search box (Figure 1.22) and type the name of the file you are looking for.

FIGURE 1.22 The Search box in Windows Explorer

If you want to search for a file on the whole computer, do this:

1. Select Local Disk (C:) in the Computer section of the Navigation pane.

2. Then use the Search box.

Here's another way:

1. Close Windows Explorer and press the F3 key on the keyboard.

2. This brings up a Search window where you can type the name of the file (Figure 1.23).

FIGURE 1.23 The Search window that is accessed by pressing F3

If you don't know the filename, you can search based on the date you believe it was created, by the kind of file it is, by the type, and other criteria. Your search will be made across your whole computer.

You can also click the Start button on the Desktop and start typing the name of the file (Figure 1.24). Searches are performed automatically as you type but only in locations that are indexed by Windows, like your libraries. To access a file or folder, click it in the list of results. If you want to perform a computer-wide search, the previous methods work better.

Although we provided the necessary keyboard shortcuts that you can use while working with files and folders in Windows, there are many more keyboard shortcuts for you to discover. You can find a complete list of keyboard shortcuts on Microsoft's Knowledge Base, here: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/126449. Don't hesitate to consult it and learn how each keyboard shortcut works. They will surely make you more productive when using Windows.

FIGURE 1.24 The Start menu search