Managing Your Files

A Disk Is An Electronic Filing Cabinet A Filing Cabinet may have multiple drawers. Each may have a label. It may have a ‘secret’ drawer. A Disk may have multiple partitions’. A partition may have a label. In Windows the label is the ‘drive letter such as “C:”. A partition may be hidden. Managing Your Files

Why Partition? O/S has Limited Addressing Capability – Maximum number of sectors Logical Convenience System Volume Data Volume Swap Volume Sharing Backup Multi-boot (Select O/S at power- up)

PARTITION: MAX SIZES for O/S DOS 5 – 512MB max. Windows 95 – 4 x 2GB on 1 physical disc Windows 98/SE/Millenium – 4, max totaling 2TB Windows XP – FAT32 – 4, max totaling 2TB Windows XP, Vista – NTFS – 4, max totaling 16TB Beyond … NTFS - 4 parts, totaling greater than 128TB Partition Manager Software – Add/Change (re-size)/Delete partition(s); Make Active etc. Boot Manager Software – such as GRUB – Select which partition (and therefore Operating System to boot Managing Your Files

Partition Manager Considerations A good partition manager should be able to: Move and/or Resize while Preserving Existing Data Add/Delete/Clone Partition Real-Time if doesn’t involve System (Boot) Volume Format Assign drive letter Boots mini-O/S if need to change the System (Boot) Volume Change Master Boot Record Managing Your Files

Sample GUI Partition Management Software Managing Your Files

Once we have our partition(s) established… Let’s load it up with files. But first, know that the terms FOLDER and DIRECTORY are essentially interchangeable. A folder or directory is just a special case of a file. It just has an attribute set that designates that the contents may only be identifiers for files and thus is maintained by the file management system. There are utilities for manipulating folders/directories – both in the command-line interface: MKDIR, CD, RMDIR, PWD and in GUI interfaces such as: EXPLORER (Windows) FINDER (Mac) NAUTILUS (one of many available in Linux distributions) Managing Your Files

some Arcane Items Folders may be “nested” to any level. Folders may be placed in the ‘root’ of a drive. A folder normally exists only within one “parent” folder. “dot’ (.) is shorthand for the current folder “dot dot” (..) is shorthand for the parent folder Managing Your Files

a Programmer’s best friend… Modern programming languages and operating systems support components that may be dynamically referenced by running programs. These are variously known as Dynamic Link Libraries (.DLL in Vindows implementations) or Shared Objects (.SO in most other implementations.) In Windows, file COMDLG32.DLL provides standard code for: FILE OPEN FILE SAVE FILE PRINT plus various other actions. Thus many of the things that you might do in EXPLORER may also be available within programs via the FILE menu. You just need to recognize the icons. I will demonstrate. Managing Your Files

Poking Around in Windows Explorer File Menu OPEN IN NEW WINDOW (Multiple Panes are convenient for Drage and Drop) Windows Power Shell Change folder and search options Quick Access Bread crumbs (where you are and how you got there) Recent Files/Folders Frequent Files/Folders Views Managing Your Files

COMDLG32’s FILE OPEN Notice the mini-icons adjacent to the “Look in:” drop-down box. They permit navigating folders, creating a folder, and altering the view. Managing Your Files

My Recommendations I like the NAVIGATION PANEL on the LEFT Do not ‘Hide Extensions’ for common file types. It prevents mistaking .PDF for .PPT etc. Use DETAILS view – it allows you to sort by any attribute of a file – such as Name, Date, Type etc. Try to keep number of files n a folder to a manageable size. If possible I like to be able to see all fo the filenames without scrolling. If not, consider segregating into folders and “drill down” as needed. Managing Your Files