Exploring Windows Explorer
By Jim Sanders, Editor, The Orange Bytes, North Orange County Computer Club, California
www.noccc.org editor(at)noccc.org
Obtained from APCUG with the author's permission for publication by APCUG member groups.
Everyone using Windows XP uses Windows Explorer all the time.
Some use it in what I consider the true form. Some, because you
use it under the title of My Computer. And all of us when we are
using Internet Explorer, because Windows Explorer is an integral part
of Internet Explorer. I continue to be surprised at how many
people do not know that you can right click on the start button and go
directly to Windows Explorer. I prefer that to the My Computer
path because it brings up Windows Explorer with the left hand pane of
the window displaying the tree structure of the files. It
surprises me that many people who use the My Computer path don’t
know that they can bring up the tree pane by clicking on the folder
button in the taskbar.
Something that is almost sad, is how many people live with the default
settings of Windows Explorer. One of the first things that I do
with a new installation of Windows XP, is to open Windows Explorer, go
to the view menu and click on details. The next step is to open
the tools menu, and click on folder options. When the folder
options window opens, but what had a slump and wrong that a mile and
the click on the view tab. Then click on display the full path in
the title bar to place a checkmark in the box, click on show hidden
files and folders to put the bullet on that line, click on a hide
extensions for known file types to remove the checkmark.
Personally, I think Microsoft did new users in particular, a major
disservice by having the last item set to by default. The
resulting confusion of having two or more files with the same name, and
not differentiated by the file extension, causes a fair amount of
distress in users that are not sure which file to choose. I like
to see the protected operating system files but you may be more
comfortable leaving them hidden. The last item is to check is
show control panel in my computer. Then click on apply, wait for
it to finish, then click on apply to all holders, then click on OK and
you’re done.
As a result of the above actions the right hand window pane will now
have four columns, name, size, height, and date modified. The sort will
be set to alphabetical by name, numbers and special characters first,
then A to Z. If you want the sort to be Z to A, click on name at the
top of the name column. If you want the sort to be by size, click on
size at the top of the size column and Windows Explorer will sort the
folder by file size, smallest file first. To reverse the order, and
place the largest file at the top of the list, click on size again. The
same procedure works with the type column and the date modified column.
There is a faint divider bar between each of the columns located in the
horizontal bar where the names of the columns are located. One of the
easiest ones to find is one space to the right of the column heading
Size. If you move the mouse cursor to that area you should see a double
headed arrow appear. If you then click and hold the left mouse button,
you can adjust the width of the edge of the columns. The width of the
name column is often too narrow to show the complete file name. Having
the complete path displayed in the address bar, is often useful when
you need to copy and paste that path into other applications.
When you have a lot of files in a folder, there is a navigation
shortcut in the name column that too few people seem to know about.
When you first open a folder, the display will show any other folders
(or what should really be called subdirectories) within that folder
followed by files, starting with the letter A. If you need to get to a
file that starts with a letter T, you might have to scroll through
several hundred files to get there. There is a faster way. Click on the
first file in the folder to highlight it, then type the first letter of
the file that you wish to find. In this example the display would
immediately jump to the first file that starts with the letter T.
If you know what you are searching for, and can type quickly, you can
follow the first letter with the second letter of the name and it will
take you to that point instead.
I think initially setting all folders on a hard disk to the detail view
is the best starting point and is best suited for the majority of
folders. Windows XP allows you to customize the view of each and every
folder and will remember what settings you assigned to a given folder.
For instance, for folders that contain photos it is often more useful
if the thumbnail view, or the film strip view, is chosen so that you
can see what each picture actually is. The advantage of the thumbnail
view is that you can find images quicker than in the filmstrip view.
The advantage of the filmstrip view is that you get a line of
thumbnails across the bottom of the pane and a larger view of which
ever thumbnail is highlighted. There are also mouse click arrow’s
that allow you to view the next or previous image. Don’t forget
that you can right click on any of the thumbnails and bring up a whole
new menu of things that you can do with the image.
Everybody should learn how to do file housekeeping on their computer
disk. Being able to move files from one folder to another, to copy
files from one folder to another, to create new folders, and several
other functions along those lines can help you keep your data
organized. It should be noted that most of these functions can be
accomplished in more than one fashion. For instance, if you wished to
copy a file from folder A to folder B, you would first select the file
by left clicking on it which will cause it to be highlighted. You
could then open the edit menu by clicking on edit, then click on copy,
then click on the destination folder, then click on paste in the edit
menu, a copy of the file will appear in that folder. Alternately,
you could use some of the keyboard shortcuts. You could highlight
the file, press and hold down the Ctrl key and then tap the C. key.
This will copy the file to the temporary holding bin called
clipboard. You would then highlight the destination folder, press
and hold down the control key, then tap the V. key which will paste the
file from the clipboard to the folder you highlighted. Another
method is called drag and drop. In this method you move the mouse
cursor over the file you wish to copy, left click and hold the mouse
button, move the mouse to drag a ghost image of the file over the top
of the destination folder and then release the left mouse button.
There are many more features to cover but this is all the room I have
for now. We will do more later.
This article has been provided to APCUG by the author solely for
publication by APCUG member groups. All other uses require the
permission of the author (see e-mail address above). |
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