Managing Files with Windows XP
Before you begin this lesson, make sure you have completed the Introduction to Windows XP.
What is a File?
Like we discussed in the first session files are pieces of information stored on (inside) your computer. Imagine the hard drive inside of your computer is like a big set of shelves. You might keep all sorts of items on it - books, music CD's, artwork or pictures, schematics or instructions for something, etc... When you want to use one of these items you find it on the shelf and put it on your desk to do something with it. Likewise when you want to use a file on your computer you find it and open it on your desktop with a program for a purpose. Your hard drive, just like a book shelf, can fit a certain number of items (files), depending on how much space they might take up.
Every file on your computer has a size (how much room it takes up on the shelf), a type (what it is - maybe a document, picture or set of instructions that tells your computer how to operate), date information (when it was created, when it was last changed, etc...), and more.
Just like a book shelf in the physical world you have to take some care to manage your items (files):
- You have to know where to look for files on your hard drive
- You should know how to use the search function in windows
- It is a good idea to be careful about how you organize your files
There are also some pretty big differences between files on your computer and objects in the physical world:
- Files on your computer aren't actually there. They're really combinations of electronic signals represented by 1's and 0's. You see representations of them (like text, pictures and video) on your screen.
- It is very easy to make a perfect copy of a file on your computer.
- Files can usually be transferred from your computer to other computers easily as well.
Where are files stored?
There are several places files might be stored.
- The most common is your hard drive, which is often labeled as your C: drive. You might have more than one drive, however, each one will be labeled with a letter, C, D, F, etc...
- On your hard drive you will find many folders. Two of the most common folders you will find files that you work on are "My Documents" and "Desktop".
- You might also have files stored on other devices, like a floppy drive, CD, DVD, or USB flash drive. These will appear like a hard drive, but with different letters and pictures.
Let's take a look at some of the places on your computer. Open "My Computer" on the Start Menu.
File Management
Instructors: Please create a document file (Wordpad will work fine) for your student to open under "My Documents".Finding and Opening a File
There are many ways to open files. Here are some of the most common.
Start a program, such as Wordpad, from the Start Menu. Find the "File" menu in the upper left and go to "Open". Navigate your way to "My Documents". Left-click on a file and then hit the "Open" button in the lower right.
 Open Wordpad from the start menu. |
 Go to open on the file menu. |
 Open the file you wish to work with. |
You can also find files with Windows Explorer. Go ahead and start it by going to the Start Menu and left-clicking on "My Computer". Navigate your way to "My Documents" and double-click on a file you would like to open. Alternatively you can right click on a file and then left-click on "Open" on the menu.
Have your instructor help you find a file of another type, such as audio or video, and open it. See what program it opens in?
 Make a new file from the file menu in Wordpad. |
 Sometimes you are offered options when making a new file. For now just use the default. |
Making a New File
There are many ways to make new files. Here are two of the most common:
Open a program on your computer, such as Wordpad. Go to the menu at the top and select "File" and then "New". If it presents you with another window about the type of new file just leave it on the default.
You can save your file by going to save on the file menu. "Saving a file" means storing is to your hard drive so you can find it next time you use your computer. If you don't save a file (store it on your computer) you will lose all of your work. If this is the first time you have saved this file you will be asked where you would like to save it. Pay close attention to where on your computer you are creating your file, so you can remember where it is in the future. Choose a name for your file and hit okay. Now you have a new file!
 Save your work regularly. |
 Use "save as" to save a new copy of what you're working on. |
 When you save a file for the first time, or choose to "save as" you will be asked where you'd like to put your file and what you'd like to name it. |
It is always a good idea to save your work periodically if you are working on a file for a long period of time. If you don't you might lose the changes you make. If you choose to 'save as' you actually will save your current file by a different name than the previous one.
Minimize all of your windows and get to your Desktop (Hint: Remember you can do this by hitting the Windows Key and "D" at the same time). Right-click on an empty spot on your desktop and go to "New". You can then pick a type of file you would like to create there. After you choose the file type a new icon representing your file will appear on your Desktop. You will already have the name selected, just type to name it whatever you like.
You can use the same method in most folders with Windows Explorer. Try doing this in My Documents.
 Make a new file by right clicking on the desktop. |
 You will be able to name your file on the spot. |
If you ever want to rename a file you can do this in a few ways. One way is to find your file with Windows Explorer and then left-click to select it. To rename it you can right-click and select "Rename" from the menu and type the new name. Alternatively you can hit the "F2" key on the top of your keyboard and type the new name.
 Right-click to copy files. |
 Right-click to paste files. |
 A copy of your file will appear at the bottom. |
Copying a File
Sometimes you will want to copy files. We will teach you three different but common ways to do this, but there are more.
Make sure you have Windows Explorer open. Find a file you would like to copy, select it by left-clicking on it once. Now right-click on the file and select "Copy" from the menu. This will copy the file to a temporary place called your "Clip Board". You can only have one file (or group of files) copied on your "Clip Board" at a time. You can then choose when you want to put the copy. Let's start by putting a copy next to the original. Right click in the empty space next to the original file and go to "Paste". A copy of your file should appear.
You can also usually copy files through the menu interface. Go ahead and left-click on a file you want to copy in order to select it. Now go to the "Edit" option on the menu at the top and go to "Copy". Sometimes you will want to copy files to a different location. Let's make a new spot to keep the copy of this file. Right-click on some empty space in Windows Explorer and go to "New" and left-click on "Folder". A new folder will appear - let's name it "Backup" and hit enter. Hit enter again to open the folder (or double-click on it). Go to the menu at the top again and pick "Edit" and select "Paste". A copy of your original file will be placed in your new "Backup" folder.
 You can also copy and paste with the edit menu at the top. |
 You can right-click to make folders, if you like. |
 Name your folders when you create them. |
 Now paste your file in the new backup directory. |
You could use the same method to backup files on a device like a floppy disk or flash drive. Let's try that using the last method, a keyboard shortcut. Find at least two files you'd like to copy and select them holding down the left mouse button and dragging a box over them. Now hold down the "Ctrl" key and "C" key at the same time. Have your instructor help you to navigate to a USB flash drive or floppy drive using "My Computer". When you find the place you'd like to copy your files go ahead and hit "Ctrl" and "V" at the same time to paste them. All of the files you selected will be copied to the new spot.
If you would like to select multiple files at once you can also pick individual ones from a list or grid. Do this by holding down the "Ctrl" key and clicking on each file you want with the left mouse button.
See a video of opening and making new files:
Moving a File
There are many ways to move files. We will overview two.
Find a folder with some files using Windows Explorer. Right-click on an empty spot and make a new folder, name it whatever you like. Double-click on the folder or select it and hit enter. Notice how it is empty? Okay now go back up one level and select one or more of your files by dragging a box over them or holding down control and left-click. Now that you have them selected you can hold down left-click on one of the files and move them to the new folder by moving your mouse over the folder and letting go of the button. Once this is done your files should disappear. Open your folder and look inside. Your files should be there.
Drag a box around the files you wish to move. |
 Left-click and hold on one of the selected files and you can drag the entire group. |
You can also move files in a similar way to copying them. Select one ore more files like you did before but this time hit cut instead of copy:
- Use the "Edit" menu to find "Cut"
- Right-click and pick "Cut" from the menu
- Hit "Ctrl" key and "X" key at the same time
Now find the place you would like to move your files (say, your Desktop). You can move the files completely by going to "Paste" like you did before, or hitting the "Ctrl" key and "V" key at the same time.
See a video of moving and renaming files:
 Drag one or more files to the recycling bin to delete them. |
 Select one or more files and delete them (remove them from storage) by hitting the delete key. This will send them to the recycling bin. |
 Right-click and pick delete from the menu to do the same thing. You can also delete entire folders. |
Deleting a File
Sometimes you might want to get rid of a file. Here are three easy ways.
If a file is on your desktop or in Windows Explorer, you can delete it by left-clicking on it to select it and holding down left-click while moving your mouse over your "Recycling Bin" and then letting go of the left-mouse button. You can do this with multiple files if you like.
You can also select one or more files and hit the "Del" key. This will bring up a window that will ask if you are sure you would like to move your files to your "Recycling Bin". Left-click on the "Yes" button if you are sure. You can also do this by right-clicking on a file on your Desktop or in Windows Explorer and picking "Delete" from the menu.
Your "Recycling Bin" holds deleted files until you empty it. You can do this by right-clicking on the "Recycling Bin" and hitting "Empty Recycling Bin". You can also do this from the file menu. Be careful when you do this, once you empty it you won't be able to get any files back. Remember that files take up space. Your hard drive can only fist so many files. Generally, documents and music files won't be enough to make you run out of space, but special files, like databases or video files, can take up a lot of room. We will discuss this in the next section.
Keeping things organized
 Empty your recycle bin by right-clicking on it. |
 Or you can use the file menu. |
You will want to keep your files organized. It will help prevent you from losing files or doing extra work and stop confusion. Even if you don't own the computer you're working on you may save files to a USB flash drive or floppy disk and you will want to keep those files in order. Give some thought to how you might create an organization system for your files using folders. If you're not sure how to best do this ask your instructor, or better yet, a librarian.
Searching for files
If you seem to have lost track of a file you can tell Windows XP to search for it. A simple way to do this is to find the folder or drive (like your hard drive, a floppy drive, or USB flash drive) containing your file in Windows Explorer and hit the "F3" key. You can also do this by hitting the search button at the top. By default this will bring up the Windows XP search companion, most often a dog. You can then choose what you're looking for, which most of the time will be files. Choose what you're looking for and type a part of your file's name and then hit enter. Be patient, often times it takes a while for a computer to search for your file(s).
 Pick the type of file you would like to look for. |
 You can type in key words that might be in the name of your lost file. |
Space on your drives
You should make sure you don't run out of space on your drives, just like you wouldn't want to run out of space on a shelf in the physical world. To check how much space you have on a given drive, such as your hard drive or a USB flash drive, find it with "My Computer" and right-click on the drive. Left-click on the "Properties" item on the menu. This will show a pie chart of how much of your drive is being used up. If you don't have at least 10% of your drive free your computer will have trouble operating.
Exercises
- How do you like to organize? What are some ways you could organize your computer files? Think up a system of organization you could use to keep files in directories (folders) on your Desktop and under "My Documents".
- One way to make sure Windows XP can help you to quickly find and open your files is to keep them organized behind the scenes (the way the computer sees them, not you). You can organize your shelf (hard drive) by defragmenting it, which is a lot like taking the books out of a randomly populated and semi-full book shelf and then putting them back in together, ordered and neatly organized next to one another. You can defragment your hard drive by going to the Start Menu and then "Programs" and then "Accessories" and then "System Tools" and picking "Disk Defragmenter". Select your main hard drive (probably C:) and hit analyze (red). The computer will tell you if you need to defragment it or not, if it does, hit defragment (blue).
You should defragment your hard drive from time to time. This is a lot like organizing a book shelf, but it happens behind the scenes. You won't notice any big changes in your computer use experience but it helps the computer keep files organized and find them a little bit faster.
 Right-click on a hard drive (like C:) and go to "properties". |
 You can then see a pie chart of how much space you're using up. |
 Find the defragment tool under system tools on your start menu. |
 You can also find the defragment option under the tools tab in the same window where you saw the pie chart. |
 Analyze your computer first (red) and it will tell you if you need to degrag it. If you do, hit degragment (blue). |
Special Files
Some files on your computer are special files. For instance, you have a "Windows" folder and "Program Files" folder. You don't want to delete, move, or rename either of these folders or any files inside of them, otherwise your computer might not work correctly. In fact, Windows XP won't normally allow you to rename these files. It's best not to move, rename, or delete a file unless you know what it is.
Exercises
- Make or copy a file somewhere on a peer’s computer without them looking. See if they can find it.
- Let’s make a shortcut to Windows Explorer
- See if you can make a desktop shortcut to a program on your start menu. Hint: remember the difference between left and right click.
Links
- Additional information about Windows Explorer in Windows XP
- Using the "Search Companion" in Windows XP