Figuring Out Windows Files and Folders

A file is a fundamental chunk of stuff. Like most fundamental chunks of stuff (say, protons or congressional districts), any attempt at a definitive definition gets in the way of understanding the thing itself. Suffice it to say that a Word document is a file. An Excel workbook is a file. That photograph your cousin e-mailed you the other day is a file. Every track on Nine Inch Nails' latest CD is a file, but so is every track on every audio CD ever made.

Filenames and folder names can be very long, but they can't contain the following characters:

/ \ : * ? " < > |

Files can be huge. They can be tiny. They can even be empty, but don't short-circuit any gray cells on that observation.

Three things are for sure about files:

• Every file has a name.

• Files — at least, files that aren't empty — contain bits, the 1s and 0s that computers use to represent reality (a tenuous concept under the best of circumstances).

• Windows lets you work with files — move them, copy them, create them, delete them, and group them together.

Folders hold files and other folders. Folders can be empty. A single folder can hold literally millions of files and other folders.

Three things are for sure about folders:

• Every folder has a name.

• Windows creates and keeps track of a whole bunch of folders, such as the following:

• The My Documents folder for each user on the PC. That's where Windows and Microsoft Office usually put new documents that you create.

• The My Pictures and My Music folders inside each user's My Documents folders. Windows — including the Media Player — tend to store your pictures and music files in these folders.

• The Shared Documents folder, which includes Shared Pictures and Shared Music folders, to make it easy to share documents, pictures, and music with other people who use your PC or other people on a network, if you have one.

• Windows lets you move, copy, create, delete, and put folders inside of other folders.

If you set them up right, folders can help you keep track of things. If you toss your files around higgledy-piggledy, no system of folders in the world will help.

To look at the files and folders on your machine that you're most likely to bump into, choose Start --> My Documents. You see something like the list shown in Figure 1.

The picture of My Documents that you see in Figure 1 comes from a part of Windows called Windows Explorer, which can help keep your files and folders organized. Many of the things that you can do in Windows Explorer, you can also do elsewhere. For example, you can rename files in the Open dialog box in Word by choosing File --> Open — but it's hard to beat the way Windows Explorer enables you to perform powerful actions quickly and easily.

If you're looking at My Documents on your computer, and you can't see the period and three-letter ends of the filenames (such as .doc and .xls) that are visible in Figure 1, don't panic! You need to tell Windows to show them — electronically knock Windows upside the head, if you will.