Chapter 9: Managing Files and Folders

Overview

The previous chapter explained what you need to know to start working with files and folders: creating and deleting them, opening them, seeing what's in them, naming them, and moving them from one place to another. This chapter discusses issues that may not come up immediately as you work with files and folders, but that you should know about if you are going to have a long- term relationship with your computer.

To a beginner, having a lot of choices is more of a burden than a convenience, but as users become more familiar with their computers, they develop their own ideas about how things should work. For this reason, Windows has default settings that cause the system to work automatically in the way the designers believe is simplest for beginners . A large number of Windows' behaviors are reconfigurable, however, so more advanced users can make their own choices.

The longer you work with your computer, the more files you create. At some point, putting them all in the Documents folder, or splitting them into two folders called Work and Home, is no longer adequate. You need to come up with a system that organizes your files into smaller, coherently related piles. Discussing organizational systems goes beyond the scope of this book, but you should know about one valuable organizational tool: the shortcut. Shortcuts enable you to access the same file or application from many different points in the folder tree, without the disadvantages that come with having several copies of the same file.

You should also know about compressed folders, which save the same files in a smaller amount of disk space, at the cost of some functionality.

Even the best-organized people occasionally forget where they put something, so you need to know how to use the Search bar. You can also speed up your searches with Indexing Service.

Being able to retrieve deleted files from the Recycle Bin (described in the previous chapter) is a convenience; but, in time, the bin becomes crowded with long-forgotten files that take up disk space for no purpose. You need to know how to manage the Recycle Bin so that it continues to be useful without unduly burdening your hard drive.

Finally, files and folders have properties (see "What Are Properties?" in Chapter 1). The Properties dialog box for a file or folder contains much useful information and lets you make certain choices regarding the object's properties and attributes.