Windows File Management - aadl.org · Windows File Management . Objective . In order to effectively use your computer and manage your files, it is important to understand the tools

Windows File Management Objective In order to effectively use your computer and manage your files, it is important to understand the tools and conventions of the windows interface. Learn to manage your files, become familiar with My Computer and Windows Explore.

Course Overview

My Computer Windows Explore Basic Drives of the Computer Drives and Directories Viewing Files Managing Files Network Drives at the Library Organizing Files Save/Save As Moving and Copying Files Different Ways to Save a File File Management Structure Opening and Viewing Files

My Computer Parts of the computer are used to manage your files. My Computer is a tool used to manage your files. On a computer that is not a thin-client, My Computer, Network Neighborhood and the Recycle Bin are the three standard icons on the Windows desktop.

Clicking on My Computer will show you the resources available to your computer.

Here in the training center My Computer has a different look, but the concepts are the same.

© Ann Arbor District Library 1

Basic Drives of the Computer

♦ The C:\ drive, also referred to as the Hard Drive is the local disk and part of the

computer you are using. The Hard Drive is a physical device on which data is stored.

♦ The floppy drive (called drive A:) can be considered an auxiliary drive, which reads, writes, and saves to a removable 31/2” plastic disk.

♦ The CD ROM drive (usually drive D:) is identified as a Compact Disc. Compact Disc can be read or played by the computer through the use of the CD ROM drive.

♦ The DVD drive (usually drive E:) holds a digital videodisc. DVD is a device to hold

movies and other multimedia presentations that combine sound with graphics.


Ports ♦ A port is an opening on a computer that can connect various types of devices. ♦ USB port is a port that connects to such devices as the thumbprint storage, digital

cameras, and peripheral devices such as mice, modems and keyboards.

We will use the s:\ drive to see what files are available to us. Inside the s:\ drive are folders and within the folders are files that have been saved.


Viewing Files The information displayed in a window can be viewed in different ways. Under the View menu, the window can be displayed as a list, thumbnails, tiles, icons and details. Details give such information as size, type and date modified. Let’s view the folders and files on the s:\ drive in the different ways. List View

Thumbnails


Tiles

Icons

Details


Network Drives At The Library There are other drives available in My Computer that are Network Drives. These drives are developed, protected and managed by the technical staff at the library. These drives are connected together with all the other drives in the network of the library. Network drives make it possible for an organization to give their employees protected space to develop and save their work. Employees of the library log on with a specific username and password, and each employee is granted specific access rights to particular areas of the network. According to these access rights, employees access different areas of the network and we can perform various tasks ranging from just viewing files to creating, editing, deleting or moving files or folders. For example, my individual drive is the I: drive.

When we are working in class, we use the S: drive

and we also use the M: drive.

On the P: drive there is local storage for each individual computer.

Users without the appropriate access right to perform a particular task in these directories-folders on the network will see a message similar to the one below:


Save Command/Save As Command

Before you begin to save, move, copy or delete files, there are several other commands you need to understand first. In order to save a file it is important to know the Save As command, and the Save command. The Save As command is used when saving and naming a document for the first time, or when renaming a file to make a copy of the original. The Save As dialog box asks where you would like to save your document and what your document will be named.

Save Command is used once the document has already been named and saved. When the saved document is edited, the save command is used to save your changes to the file. Save As Command is used to save a separate copy of the file to a different name or location. Note: before a new file has been saved for the first time, clicking on Save brings up the Save As command.

Saving To A Location in Save As

When the Save As window is brought up, the Save In field usually defaults to My Documents. The decision can then be made to Save to My Documents or by clicking the small down arrow, select another place to save the document. Save In gives you a pull down menu to identify where you want to save the files.

The pull down menu


The Save As command also gives a ‘Save as type:’ field. There are quite a few ways that a file can be saved. As noted above, the field indicates the file can be saved as only a Word Document. Files can be saved in different formats, such as a word document can be saved for a Macintosh or a word document can be saved as a txt file. In certain circumstances txt files are easier to send over the Internet instead of a word document. For example, it is wiser to send a resume in e-mail as a txt file instead of a formatted word document. One never knows how the formatting will be displayed in the receiving computer. Let’s save a file to the Public_Save folder on the s:\ drive. Open Microsoft Word, type a few words. When we go to Save AS, identify the s:\ drive, from the s:\ drive open the Public_Save folder to save the file. All of us cannot save a file with the same name in the same location. If we call the file test1, we should add our initials and use an underscore for a space. Our file title should be test1_mk (the last part your initials).


File name provides a field to type the name of the file to be saved.

After saving a file, the computer returns to the active file that has been saved. Let’s close the saved file and see if we can find our file in the Public Save folder of the s:\ drive. Different Ways to Save A File

You can save a second identical copy of a document, with the same name, but in a different location.

You can save the same document with a different name storing a separate

version of the same document. Since you give the document a different name, the previous version will not be overwritten. Now you can keep both versions of the documents in the same location.

You can save a second identical copy of a document, with the same name, in

the same location. It will be identified as copy of that file. To make a copy of a file in the same location, you right-click on the name of the file and click on copy, then moving the mouse to a non-text area, right click and choose paste. A copy of the original will be placed in the same location with the name: copy of test1_mk.

Opening and Viewing Files

Now that we have learned about the different drives, and how to save your files to a network drive, how do you go about finding saved files? Let’s move through folders and files on Sandbox and reach a file. Take note of how we move from folders to files. We will begin by going to Sandbox, from Sandbox we will move to the folder Public_Save. Once we have Public_Save open, move to the folder Downtown. You can move through folders and files and only one window will remain open on the desktop. You can also select to have all of the windows that are open remain open. To do this, click on MyComputer. When MyComputer opens, go up to Tools and slide down to Folder Options.

When Folder Options opens a menu will come up.


Go to the Section Browse folders and click the radio button next to “Open each folder in its own window.”


Now as we open files and folders all the windows will remain open.

Let us go back and change the radio button to read “Open each folder in the same window.”

Windows Explore


Windows Explore is another way to view or move through folders and files. You can open Explore in several different ways. You can double click on the My Computer icon while holding down the shift key.

You can also reach the Explore Window by holding down the

Windows key and pressing the letter e on your keyboard.

When you use either one of the methods, Windows Explore will open up in a 2-pane window with the main directories showing.

The Structure and Organization of Drives and Directories


You can also open Explore by right clicking on Start.

When using the 2-pane window or Windows Explore the drives, folders and files are shown as main levels and sublevels. The expandable list shows drives and folders in cascading levels, as they are organized starting from your desktop. The Desktop is the topmost level simply listing all resources shown on the desktop including My Computer. My Computer contains all of the drives and the folders they contain.

Structure Scroll Bar Contents On the left side of the window, an expandable list, displays the drives and folders that are available to your computer. On the right side of the window are the contents of the folder that was selected in the left windowpane. The drives or folders list usually contain other folders. This is indicated by the + sign. The + sign indicates that the drives or folders contain substructures. Clicking on the + sign, or double-clicking on the icon will expand the structure and display the next level of folders. Clicking on – sign left of the expanded item collapses the structure back to its previous state, hiding all of the folders that the item contains. The + sign means the drive or folder can be expanded. © Ann Arbor District Library 13

The – sign means the drive or folder is already expanded and can be collapsed.

Icons are represented next to the name of the file, folder, or directory.

The Desktop is represented by a desktop with a pencil on paper.

My Computer looks like a small computer. Drives C: and A: are physical devices on the computer and are represented by a box.

Folders are represented by yellow squares with a tab. Notice Excel Practice does not have a + or – sign. That means the contents of that folder contain only files. There are no folders within the Excel Practice folder. Network Neighborhood shows two computers connected.

The Recycle Bin looks like a Trash Can.


In an office you might have files in folders, main folders in hanging folders, and the hanging folders in drawers, in a file cabinet. Think of Drives and Directories in the same way. You have a file (E-Mail Basics Handout), you put the file in a folder (E-Mail Basics), the folder is then placed in a hanging folder (Downtown Classes), the hanging folder is placed in the drawer marked (Computer Classes) in the file cabinet marked J:Drive.

Managing Files Understanding the File Structure It is not only important to know where files are located, it is important to know where the file originated. Let’s go back and open Explore and look at the window that opens. What are we looking at when we open Explore? First the 2-paned window opens with information on the right and information on the left. Let’s begin to understand the difference between the information on the right and the information on the left.


Notice the address bar tells us we have opened up in the M:\drive. Very much like it would be if we opened up our own computer in the c:drive\. The Start Menu is highlighted, letting us know that is point we started from on our computer. Let’s take a look at the whole picture. The Desktop is the very first layer of our structure. Under Desktop, we see My Documents and My Computer, which are icons on our desktop. Notice under My Computer, there are folders that we do not see on the desktop. These are folders that go on behind the scenes of our computer. Notice that some of the folders have plus or minus signs before them indicating whether they are closed or open.


As you look at the File Structure there is a definite layout to the drives and folders. Desktop is set to the left of the windowpane with My Documents set slightly to the right as to be right under Desktop. Under My Computer, the folders are set slightly to the right as to be right under My Computer. Under Documents and Settings there are folders set slightly to the right to indicate the folders belong under Documents and Settings. Following the path to the end, My Network Places and Recycle Bin are set slightly more to the left because those icons are under Desktop and indeed can be seen on the Desktop.

Organizing Files

Creating Folders Before creating a folder, you need to select the folder or drive you want to put a new folder into. Let’s create a new folder on Sandbox on ‘Opus’ s:\ drive. We create a new folder by right clicking on the content side of Sandbox.


Click on the Folder menu option. As so as you click on Folder, a new folder icon will appear. The words New Folder is active for you to name the folder.

.

Let’s name the folder with our last name.

Make another folder with your last name and the number 1 without a space (krolik1). Now go back to the folder with just your last name and we will rename the folder with your first name.

Deleting a folder


To delete a folder, click on the folder to be deleted. Once it is highlight, go up to the File and click. One of the options under File is Delete. When you click on delete a window will come up asking if you really want to delete the file. Click Yes.

Moving and Copying Files There are several ways files can be moved from one folder to another. The most important part to remember when moving files is to position both the Source Folder and the Target Folder in the Explore Window for easy movement of files. The Explore Window must be maneuvered so both Source Folder and Target Folder are accessible. Remember this is only a concern when you are working in the Explore Window that consists of two panes. If you wanted to move a file to a folder it is important that the folder you want to move the file to is visible.

If you wanted to place one of the files from the folder oldfiles into the Downtown folder in Public_Save, you can see that Public_Save is not visible in the Structure side of the Explore window. You must scroll the left frame to have Public_Save and Downtown in view. Using the scroll bar, bring Public_Save and the folder Downtown into view.


The Difference between Moving and Copying Files

Copying a file

When you copy a file from one place to another, you have made a copy of the file and place the copy of the file in a new location. Moving a file

When you move a file, you have simply moved the entire file from one place to another. Techniques to Copy or Move files

Remember, in Windows, there are several ways of performing the same task. Technique to Copy and Paste If you are in Windows Explore you can highlight the file that you want to copy. Go to Edit on the Menu Bar and click on Copy. You then move to where you want the file copied too. Once you are in the right spot, you can click again on edit and slide to Paste.


Again remember to find the target folder, the folder you want to place the file in, and have it positioned so you can see the source file, the file you want copied, and the target folder at the same time. Right-click on the file to be copied and choose Copy. Right-click on the folder in which you want to place a copy of the file, and choose Paste. In essence you are using functions from the edit menu, but reaching them by using a right-click instead of the Menu Bar.


Drag and Drop

Locate the Source Folder (the folder you want to move) first. Open the tree structure until you can see the folder. Leave the structure expanded. Use the scroll bar to go to the Target Folder (the folder where you want to move the folder to) . You might also need to expand the structure until you see the Target Folder. Open it so that the document appears in the right side pane of Windows Explore. Then, use the scroll bar to place the Source Folder so it can be seen easily to move the file from the Source Folder to the Target Folder. After the two Folders have been positioned, click down on the left mouse button on the folder or file to be move. Holding down the mouse button, drag the file or folder to the Target Folder. When the Target Folder is highlighted, let go of the mouse button. When you are using the Drag and Drop method, you are taking the file and moving it from one location to another location. Drag and Drop does not copy and move.

Moving and Copying a File

When moving a file there are several things to understand about the action you are taking. You should know the difference between a file being moved from one place to another and a copy of a file. Right-click Mouse Button, Drag, and Drop

Right-click on the file and holding down the mouse button, drag the file to the Target Folder until it is highlighted. Release the mouse button. Cut and Paste Technique Right-click on the file, choose Cut, right-click on the Target Folder and choose Paste. When you Cut and Paste, you are removing the file from its location (or cutting) and


placing the file in another location (or pasting). With this way, you still have one copy of the file but you have moved the file to another location. Copy and Paste Technique Right-click on the file, choose Copy (a copy of the file is made), right-click on the Target Folder and choose Paste (the copy is pasted into the new location). When you Copy and Paste, you are leaving the file in its original location, making a copy of the file, and placing it in another location. With this way, you have two copies of the file but now the file exists in two different locations. Copying more than one file Selecting contiguous files

To copy more than one file when the files are all next to each other: Click on the first file in the group, then press and hold the shift key down and click on the last file in the group. Keep the Shift key pressed down. Once the files you want to copy is selected, you can right-click and choose Copy or use the Edit menu. Right-click on the destination folder and choose Paste from the right-click menu or the Edit menu. Right-click method


Edit Menu

If you feel comfortable, you can use the drag and drop technique. Select the files and drag the files to the target folder. Selecting non-contiguous files.

To select non-contiguous files, click on the first file to be selected, then press and hold the Ctrl key down and click one by one, on the other files you want to select.


After the non-contiguous files are selected, the same method of copy and paste, cut and paste, or drag and drop can be used.

File Management Structure By understanding the structure on your C:\ drive you can organize your work by taking saved files and put them into folders. There are many different ways to organize your work in file management. There is no right or wrong way. There are many options and it is up to you to use what work best for you. 3/08


C drive

My Documents

Family History

Folder

File

File

Folder

File

Folder

File

File

Folder

File