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Exploring Your System February 1999 • Vol.5 Issue 2 |
Windows Explorer The Internal Map For Windows 98 | ||
 "All guts and no glory." Windows Explorer fits this expression well. The Windows Explorer utility is one of the most useful and hard-working features of Windows 98, just as it was in Windows 95. It's nice to know that some things don't change. Yet, despite all its hard work and numerous benefits, most people don't recognize this feature for its brilliance. With it, you can do such basic file functions as copy, delete, and rename. Like a map, Windows Explorer displays the location of everything on your drives. It is also useful for launching programs, getting into files, finding out how much space you have left on your hard drive, and more. When you want to get "computer literate," we suggest you start by learning all about Windows Explorer. You will find Windows Explorer in Windows 98 (Win98) by clicking the Start button, moving the cursor up to Programs, and in the next submenu, looking towards the bottom of the list. Click Windows Explorer and the Windows Explorer window will appear.  Files & Folders. Whatever you're creating, whether it's a word processing document, an Excel spreadsheet, or bitmap graphic, you will save your work as a "file" of some sort, so understandably, this search option is probably the most frequently used. Files are simply the name you put on a given project. In whatever program you are using, when you save your work, you type in a file name—up to 255 characters. "My Trip to Mars 1998," "Letter to Bill Cosby 9-13-98" and "My Novel" are all examples of file names. When you name a file, you can use all the letters and symbols on your keyboard, except the slashes, a question mark, a quotation mark, the asterisk, or a bracket. You can efficiently organize files into folders. You might have your short story files, are stored in a folde4r labeled "Stories." All your personal letters could go in a folder named "Friends." And all your cover letters could and your resume could go into another folder titled "JobHunt." Your computer is as organized as you want it to be. There's nothing that says you have to be as organized as Ann Landers. If you're the type of person that likes the sheets on your bed tight enough to bounce a quarter, you'll probably love organizing your files, and Windows Explorer is an excellent place to do that.
Developing Navigational Skills. If you've read about Win98—or are hearing about it in the news—you may have heard about how the Microsoft Internet Explorer Web browser (the tool that can get you onto the Internet) has become integrated with the rest of the operating system. Microsoft explains that its reason for making Win98 components unified with Internet Explorer is "to add Internet awareness to the existing Windows 95 user interface, without requiring user retraining." Windows Explorer also has this World Wide Web-like look and functionality. The difference between the Internet Explorer and Windows Explorer is that Internet Explorer helps you get around the Internet. Windows Explorer, on the other hand, offers you "the big picture" of all your system's resources. This includes all your drives, such as your hard drive, your diskette drive, and your CD-ROM drive; the network, if you're connected to one; and a connection to the Internet Explorer browser. Windows Explorer also assists you in working with files and folders, along with all of your system resources. You'll note that Windows Explorer is divided into two halves (or panes). The left side shows the directory hierarchy of your computer. Some people refer to it as a tree structure because of its "branches." At the top is My Computer, and below it, the computer's resources. Your hard drive—Drive C: on most computers—contains an abundance of folders. Click one of these folders and note how the right pane displays the folder's contents. Click the plus signs (+) to display more subfolders within a folder. To ease yourself into working with Windows Explorer, you can affect the size of the window in a few ways. If the window is not taking up your full screen, you can enlarge the window by clicking the Maximize button (the middle button with a square in it) in the upper right corner of the window. In this way, you can see more of your folders and files on-screen at once. If you want the window to decrease in size, such as for drag-and-drop purposes, click the same button again. If you want to change the size of either pane, drag the bar that separates the two panes.
Good Work Ethic. Windows Explorer makes organizing tasks easy. When you need to delete, copy, move, or rename files or folders, this is the place to go. After you open Windows Explorer, click a folder on the left side of the window—any folder will do. Note how the contents of that folder show up on the right side. The contents may be files, graphics, or other folders. To understand what you can do with files in Windows Explorer, click any file in the right pane. Notice how a single-click highlights the file. To do anything with a file, you have to highlight it first. Delete. If you want to delete the highlighted file, press DELETE on your keyboard and a Confirm File Delete box appears. Click Yes if you want the file deleted. Deleted files go into the Recycle Bin, a special area on your Desktop and computer. If you accidentally delete something and instantly regret it, thanks to the Recycle Bin, you can undo your action. For more information about the functions of the Recycle Bin, see "Waste Management: Use The Recycle Bin To Safely Dispose Of Your Computing Trash " in this issue. Rename. If you want to rename the highlighted file, move your cursor to the File menu and click it to reveal a drop-down list. Click the Rename command. Now you'll see that the file you highlighted has a box around it with a blinking cursor. Type in the new name you want, and the old name will be replaced. When you are done typing, press ENTER on your keyboard. It is best to rename only the files you created. Other files on your computer could be system or program files and changing their names could prevent a program—or your computer—from working when it tries to access a certain program name that it was engineered to look for, but because you renamed it, it can't find it. Copy. If you want to copy a highlighted file to another folder (so that you have two copies of your file on the hard drive, in two different places), move your cursor to the Copy button from the main toolbar and click. That file is now "in memory." Highlight the folder you want to place this file in and click the Paste button. Your file has been copied. If you open the folder, you should see the file in it.
Move. Moving a file is different than copying a file. You are not duplicating a file, but switching its location. To move a file, you can drag-and-drop it. That is, you'll select a file, continue to hold your mouse button down, and move the mouse to the other folder or drive that you want the file in. Conveniently, you will see your file dragged across the screen to its destination. Next, let go of the mouse button. Your file will no longer be in its original folder, but in the new folder. If you drag-and-drop a file to another drive, however, your file won't be moved; it will actually be copied. You will still have a copy on your hard drive, as well as a duplicate on the other drive. Files can also be easily moved to diskette by utilizing this method. Also, if you drag-and-drop an application file—a program—to the Start Button, that program will then be listed as a shortcut at the top of the Start menu. The Send To command is another way to move things. Some people like this the best. This method also has you highlight or select what you want moved. Next, go to the top of the window to the menu bar, and click File. Move the cursor to Send To, and a list appears of destinations. Choose the 3½ Floppy option if you need to move the file to the diskette in your diskette drive. Be sure to put a diskette in the drive first. By sending a file to the Desktop As A Shortcut, you will create an icon of the file on your Desktop. This is useful if you use a file often. In this way, when you turn on your computer and see the icon on the Desktop, you can just click the icon—and shazam—you're in the file. If you use Microsoft's E-mail system, Outlook Express, you can send a file to this application by selecting Mail Recipient under Send To. For portability purposes, you can also select Send To, along with My Briefcase, which is another special feature within Win98. It lets you work with two or more computers, while still keeping all your files in sync with one another. For more information, see "My Briefcase: The Personalized Portable PC Associate " in this issue. Finally, you can also send files to My Documents, a folder where some people keep their most important and vital documents. This Win98 feature is also discussed in more detail elsewhere in this issue. See "My Documents: Understanding & Using This Folder Efficiently " for more information.
One last trick in performing these routines: If you want to delete, copy, or move two or more files or folders at a time, you can highlight multiple files in a few ways. One is to hold down the CTRL key and then click the files or folders you want to highlight. If you are selecting contiguous files, such as several files in a row, click the first file, hold down the SHIFT key, and click the last file. All the files between the two will be highlighted. After the files are highlighted, you can drag one, and the rest will follow. If you press the DELETE key, all will be deleted. If you want to copy them all, all will be copied. Beyond The Basics. With Windows Explorer, you can perform a number of tasks beyond the basics of deleting, moving, copying, and renaming. Don't feel, however, you have to know everything before you start using Windows Explorer. Learn the things you need, and don't worry about the rest, it's better to learn through experience anyway. Opening programs and files. Double-clicking any word processing or data file listed in Windows Explorer does two things: first, it starts the program used by that file and, second, it brings up that file. This is a fast way to get to your work. Compare that to clicking the Start button, moving up to Programs, clicking the program you need, and, once the program is started, clicking on File, Open, and the name of the file you need. Creating new folders. To create new folders into which you can add files, use the following tip. In the left pane, highlight the drive or folder where you want to place the new folder or subfolder. Move your cursor to File menu at the top and click. Choose the New command from the drop-down list and then click Folder from the submenu. A new folder appears in the right pane, displaying the temporary name, "New Folder." Type in a name for the new folder and press ENTER on your keyboard. If the new folder does not appear on the left pane, click the plus sign (+) beside the drive or folder that contains the new folder. A sub-directory should open up and drop down in the listing. Disk space. The easiest way to see how much space you have on your hard drive is to click your hard drive in the left pane. Look to the bottom of the window to see how much space is left on the drive. If you don't see that information, then click the View menu, and on the drop-down list, click Status Bar. The Status Bar is typically a standard feature that appears at the bottom of every window, informing the users of various facts and functions as they occur. For a visual graph of how much hard drive space you have left, move your cursor to the left pane and right-click your hard drive. In the list that appears, click Properties. You will see a pie chart of how much space is used and how much is left. Knowing how much space you have on your hard drive is important because you don't want to run out of space.; that's the last thing any computing user needs. By using Windows Explorer, you can attempt to alleviate this situation by deleting the files you don't need. If you want to archive them, move them onto diskettes first before deleting them from the hard drive. This will also free up space. In addition, every time you go onto the Internet, all those pictures you see are actually saved on your hard drive as temporary files. "Temporary" is relative, however. If you don't erase those files, they hang around, like uninvited guests. This is where a new utility called Disk Cleanup comes in handy. Disk Cleanup. This utility is also located in the Properties dialog box. A graph appears, showing you how much space you've used and how much is left. Next to the graph is a button marked Disk Cleanup. Click it if you want to utilize this utility. A new window appears where you can choose four types of temporary files that can be deleted in bulk: Temporary Internet Files, Downloaded Program Files, Recycle Bin, and Temporary Files. To the right of their listing is a calculation of how much space the files take up. To choose what you want to delete, click in the appropriate boxes, and check marks will appear in those boxes. If you click OK at the bottom of the window, all the things you checked will be removed. It's a good idea to access Disk Cleanup every few weeks. Viewing and arranging files. The list of files and folders on Windows Explorer are automatically arranged alphabetically. You may, however, want to see the listing in a different order, such as by creation date. To do so, click View from the menu bar at the top of the window, and move your cursor down the drop-down menu to Arrange Icons. Another menu appears with four choices: By Name, By Date, By Type, and By Size. Click any of the choices to change the order. Date arranges files in descending order, from the newest files to the oldest. Size goes from biggest to smallest. Type goes alphabetically by the kind of file it is, and Name is the default option. You can also change the way the files appear in Windows Explorer. You can have large or small icons attached to the names, as well as have them arranged in parallel columns or in a list with the details of size and last date modified. Try them all. Under View, click on the following choices to find out which you prefer: Large Icons, Small Icons, List, and Details. Format. In the old days (five years ago and longer), when you bought new diskettes, they came "unformatted." You had to format each and every diskette. Formatting them prepared the diskette for data. These days, diskettes not only are much less expensive, but they come already formatted. In the rare case you have an unformatted diskette or need to reformat one (which erases everything on it), you can use Windows Explorer to format a diskette. To do so, put a diskette in Drive A:, right-click the drive in the left pane of the Windows Explorer window, and then click Format. For format type, choose Full. Beyond Your Hard Drive. As we said earlier, Windows Explorer is rarely given the credit it deserves. In fact, many users still think it is just another way to access the contents on your hard drive, without even realizing how much utility power they are actually missing out on. So, respect your Windows Explorer utility and appreciate it for the all the hard work that it is capable of. by Christopher Meeks |
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