Managing Your Files

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Managing YourFiles
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Objectives

• Develop file management strategies
• Explore files and folders
• Create, name, copy, move, and delete
• Folders
• Files
• Work with compressed files
• Work with Folder Views and File Extensions

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Organizing Files and Folders

• A file is a collection of data that has a name
  and is stored in a computer.
• Files are organized by storing them in folders (
  MyDocuments is a folder example ).
• Think of a folder as a container. It may be empty
  or it may contain files and/or other folders.
• Think of a disk as a device specific container
  for organizing files and folders.
• Every device has a root directory identified by a
  drive letter ( C, D, F, etc. )
• Disk Type ( device type ) Sample
  Drive Letter ( top-level folder name )
• USB drive F
• Optical disc (DVD) E
• Optical disc (CD) D
• Hard disk C
• 3.5 floppy disk A
• Another word for a folder which is often used is
  directory.
• Folder subfolder
• Directory subdirectory
• Root Directory ( F\, E\, D\, C\, A\, etc. ).
  This represents the highest level in the folder
  hierarchy. Files or top-level folders may be
  stored here.

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Organizing Files and Folders
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Organizing Files and Folders

• Windows organizes folders and files in a
  hierarchy or file system
• Windows stores the folders and important files it
  needs to turn on the computer in its root
  directory C\
• The file system for any storage device used with
  a Windows system has a root directory
  represented by a single backslash ( \ ) .
• To refer to the root directory for a specific
  device, Windows uses its device letter followed
  by the backslash ( A\, C\, D\, etc ).
• Folders stored within other folders are called
  subfolders. Remember that the terms directory and
  subdirectory may be used as well. These terms
  were more commonly used in DOS.

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Organizing Files and Folders
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Strategies for Organizing Files and Folders

• The type of disk you use to store files
  determines how you organize those files
• Storing files on removable media allows you to
  use simpler organization
• The larger the capacity of the medium, the more
  levels of folders you should use
• My Documents is a folder is where many
  applications will store files you create by
  default
• You should have a backup, or duplicate copy, of
  important files

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Strategies for Organizing Files and Folders
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Exploring Files and Folders

• Windows Explorer shows the files, folders, and
  drives on your computer
• Panes
• Explorer bar
• Folders pane
• Expand icon
• Collapse icon -
• My Computer shows the drives on your computer.
  You can then open up the drives to see the files
  and folders.

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Exploring Files and Folders
You can tell that Windows Explorer is being used
because the Folders button has been clicked.
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Exploring Files and Folders
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Using Windows Explorer

• My Documents folder

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Navigating to Your Data Files

• The term path is a notation that indicates a
  files location on your computer
• F\FM\Tutorial\Holiday.bmp
• F is the drive name (root directory on device)
• FM is a top-level folder on drive F
• Tutorial is a subfolder of the FM folder
• Holiday.bmp is the full filename with the file
  extension
• Holiday.bmp is contained in Tutorial which is
  contained in FM which is contained in the root
  directory of drive F

F FM Tutorial Holiday.bmp
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Viewing the Files in a Folder
Icons View
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Viewing the Files in a Folder

• Several different views are possible when
  displaying the contents of a folder. Your choices
  are
• Graphical Views
• Thumbnails
• Tiles
• Icons
• Tabular Views
• List
• Details ( provides the most information )

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Working with Folders and Files

• Creating Folders using Windows Explorer
• Click File on the menu bar, point to New to
  display the submenu, and then click Folder.
  Note there are some other ways of doing this.

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Working with Folders and Files

• Moving and Copying Files and Folders
• Moving a file removes it from its current
  location and places it in a new location you
  specify
• Copying places a copy of the file in a new
  location

Move this item selected from the Files and
Folders task pane in Windows XP.
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Working with Folders and Files

• Naming and Renaming Files
• Filenames provide important information about the
  file, including its contents and purpose
• Main part of the filename
• Dot
• File extension
• A file extension identifies a files type and
  indicates which program will open it if you
  double-click its iconA file extension is
  associated with an application in Windows XP
• To rename a file ( folder ), select it and do one
  of the following
• Press the F2 function key
• Right-click the file and choose the Rename
  command
• Type in the new filename

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Working with Folders and Files

• Deleting Files and Folders
• The Recycle Bin is a system folder on your hard
  disk that holds deleted files until you remove
  them permanently
• Beware When deleting files or folders from a
  network drive the Recycle bin may not used! In
  this situation you are not able to retrieve the
  files once you have deleted them.

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Working with Compressed Files

• Files stored in a compressed (zipped) folder take
  up less disk space
• Allows you to transfer files more quickly
• Extracting a file creates an uncompressed copy of
  the file in a folder you specify, while the
  original file remains in the compressed folder
• Compression programs
• Compressed Folders
• WinZip
• PKZip

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Advanced Folder View Options

• The slides which follow cover material that is
  NOT in your lab book.
• Please go over this material carefully!

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Common File Extensions

• exe executable program
• com, bat, sys, ini Windows system files
• txt text document ( Notepad, Edit )
• doc, docx MS Word document
• xls, xlsx MS Excel spreadsheet
• gif, jpeg, bmp, png graphics formats
• rtf rich text file
• pdf, xps document management ( sharing )
• html, htm web page document
• mp3, wma compressed audio format
• mpeg, divx, wmv, mov compressed movie formatj
• java, cpp, bas program source code file
• Can you identify the application that would open
  a file with one of these extensions?

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Importance of File Extensions

• associates a file to an application. This
  commonly happens when an application is
  installed
• determines the icon displayed for a file
• determines which application is used to open the
  file if it is double-clicked

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Changing Folder Options

• Sometimes you may want or need to change some of
  the options for a folder to display or hide
  information ( such as the file extension )
• Two Folder options we will look at are
• Hide extensions for known file types
• Show hidden files and folders

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Current View of a Folder
Here is an existing view of a folder in which
file extensions are not being displayed nor are
hidden files or folders displayed. The
objective is to change this view to enable both
of these folder options.
It is often very helpful to actually be able to
see the extension for a file. This allows you
to diagnose and solve some problems you would not
otherwise be able to.
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Changing Folder Options
To change folder options ( not the view of the
files but actual folder options ) click on the
Tools menu and choose the Folder Options command
in the folder you want to make changes for.
This will pop up a dialog box with different
tabs which can be selected.
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Changing Folder Options
From the list of available tabs, click on the
View tab.
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Changing Folder Options

• From here you can find the settings for
• Hide extensions for known file types and
• Show hidden files and folders

Note Checkboxes can be checked or
unchecked. Radio buttons are mutually exclusive
( only one may be selected ).
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Changing Folder Options

• Uncheck the Hide extensions for known file
  types checkbox if it is checked.
• Click the Show hidden files and folders
  radio button to select it if it is not already
  selected.

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Updated Folder View
You should now be able to see the file extension
for every file in your folder and also
folders/files with the hidden attribute set
will be displayed.