Microsoft Windows 7 - Illustrated Unit D: Customizing File and Folder Management

Change the layout of Explorer windowsChange the layout of Explorer windows Change folder optionsChange folder options Change file details to listChange file details to list Change search optionsChange search options 2 Microsoft Windows 7 – Illustrated Objectives

Use personal foldersUse personal folders Customize personal foldersCustomize personal folders Display disk and folder informationDisplay disk and folder information Compress files and foldersCompress files and folders Manage files and folders on a CD or DVDManage files and folders on a CD or DVD 3 Microsoft Windows 7 – Illustrated Objectives

Unit Introduction To be more efficient, customizing files and folders will save you time and effort Customizing options include: change the layout of Window Explorer windows change folder view options to display file and folder information view the contents of personal folders create a personal folder and customize the view options display disk and folder size information compress files and folders to save disk space use CDs or DVDs to backup and store files 4 Microsoft Windows 7 – Illustrated

Changing the Layout of Explorer Windows Windows 7 gives you the option to customize the layout for each Explorer window depending on the information the window contains The layout for each Explorer window includes a menu Bar, Details pane, Preview pane, and Navigation pane, but only the Details and Navigation panes appear by default the Details pane displays information about the selected file, folder, or disk at the bottom of the window the Preview pane displays the contents of a selected file on the right side of the window Some Explorer windows, such as the personal folder labeled with your user account name, also includes a Search Pane, which you can use the Search pane displays basic and advanced search options 5 Microsoft Windows 7 – Illustrated

Changing the Layout of Explorer Windows (cont.) 6 Microsoft Windows 7 – Illustrated The Preview pane in an Explorer window Explorer window layout options

Changing Folder Options Windows displays folder contents in a standard way, known as the default Default settings are: Tiles view displays files and folders as icons Folders show Details and Navigation panes folders open in the same window items open when you double-click them (your default views may differ depending on your computer setup) Folder views options include: Icons (Extra Large, Large, Medium, and Small), List, Details or Tiles each time you open a folder, you can change the view permanently to the view you prefer and in addition to the defaults, you can change options such as folder settings to show or hide, file name extensions, hidden files and folders, show or hid protected operating system files, and show pop-up descriptions of folders and desktop items 7 Microsoft Windows 7 – Illustrated

Changing Folder Options (cont.) 8 Microsoft Windows 7 – Illustrated Folder Options with View tab Marketing folder with new folder options Folder Options with General tab

Changing File Details to List You can display files and folders in a variety of different ways When you view files and folders in an Explorer window with any view, a default list of file and folder information opens, which consists of: Name, Date modified, Type, Size If the default list of file and folder details doesn’t provide the needed information, you can add and remove the file and folder information you want, to and from the Details view by choosing the details command or right-clicking on the column header and making the changes 9 Microsoft Windows 7 – Illustrated

Moving columns in Details View 10 Microsoft Windows 7 – Illustrated You can change the order of column details to make it easier to find the information you need by using the Choose Details dialog box or the mouse pointer The easiest way to move a column detail a short distance is to drag the column indicator button between the two columns where you want to place the column as you drag the column indicator button, the column moves to display the new arrangement of the columns if moving a column several columns across the screen, the best way to move it is to use the Choose Details dialog box

Changing File Details to List (cont.) 11 Microsoft Windows 7 – Illustrated Columns added in Details view Columns modified in Details view Choose Details dialog box

Changing Search Options The Search box at the bottom of the Start menu and at the top of every Explorer window filters out items that don’t match the text you type In the Search box, you can also perform advanced searches by specifying multiple keywords or properties connected by Boolean filters, such as AND, NOT, OR, Quotes, Parentheses, >, or < for example, the advanced search kind: (Rich Text Document OR Bitmap Image), finds all files with the type Rich Text Document OR Bitmap Image Windows also provides an option to perform a natural language search, which allow s you to perform the same property or Boolean search, using a more intuitive form instead of typing kind: (Rich Text Document OR Bitmap Image), you can type rich text or bitmap 12 Microsoft Windows 7 – Illustrated

Changing Search Options (cont.) Before you can use natural language, you need to enable it on the Search tab in the Folder Options dialog box On the search tab, you can also set options to specify what searches to perform and how to perform them you can specify whether to search indexed locations or everywhere or to include subfolders or find partial matches an indexed location is a file that Windows has kept track of and stored information about using an index to make locating files faster and easier 13 Microsoft Windows 7 – Illustrated

Changing Search Options (cont.) 14 Microsoft Windows 7 – Illustrated Folder Options with Search tab Search results using natural language

Modifying the Index to Improve searching Indexes can be modified to customize and improve searching making locating files faster and easier By default, indexed locations include a personal folder, , and offline files and exclude program files and system files to change indexed locations, use Indexing Options in the Control Panel to view, add, remove, and modify indexed locations, indexed file types, and other advanced index settings if a file type is not recognized by the index you can add it, or if you are having problems with the search index, you can rebuild or restore it 15 Microsoft Windows 7 – Illustrated

Using Personal Folders Windows 7 comes with a personal folder that stores your most frequently used folders in one location the personal folder appears on the Start menu with the name of the person logged on to the computer and contains only files and folders associated with the user account and it is unique for each user The personal folder includes a variety of subfolders, such as Contacts, Desktop, Downloads, Favorites, Links, My Documents, My Music, My Pictures, My Videos, Saved Games, and Searches depending on previous installations, devices installed, or other users, the names and types of personal folders might differ 16 Microsoft Windows 7 – Illustrated

Using Personal Folders (cont.) The My Documents, My Music, My Pictures, and My Videos folder are included folders by default in their respective library folders, so when you save files into a library folder, they are actually stored in your personal folder If you and a friend use the same computer, there are two sets of personal folders, one with your name and another with your friend’s name when you log on to the computer, your personal folders open, but you cannot access your friend’s personal folders 17 Microsoft Windows 7 – Illustrated

Using Personal Folders (cont.) 18 Microsoft Windows 7 – Illustrated Personal Folder Sample Pictures folder

Using the Shared Documents folder Shared folders provide a place to make files, pictures, etc., available to others who use your computer andShared folders provide a place to make files, pictures, etc., available to others who use your computer and Each user account has a set of public foldersEach user account has a set of public folders the standard public folders contains subfolders to help you organize the files you are sharing including Public Documents, Public Music, Public Videos, Public Downloads, Public Pictures, and Recorded TVthe standard public folders contains subfolders to help you organize the files you are sharing including Public Documents, Public Music, Public Videos, Public Downloads, Public Pictures, and Recorded TV if you are connected to a network, the files in the Public folder are available to network usersif you are connected to a network, the files in the Public folder are available to network users you can designate any folder on your computer as a shared folder and set permission levels for other people or groupsyou can designate any folder on your computer as a shared folder and set permission levels for other people or groups To stop sharing, select the folder, click the Share with button on the toolbar, then click NobodyTo stop sharing, select the folder, click the Share with button on the toolbar, then click Nobody 19 Microsoft Windows 7 – Illustrated

Customizing Personal Folders The My Pictures, My Music, and My Videos folders include specialized button for working with pictures, music, or videos You can customize a new or an existing folder for documents, pictures, music, or videos in the folder by applying a folder template which is a collection of toolbar options for working with specialized content Windows 7 comes with 5 folder templates: General Ite ms, Documents, Music, Pictures, and Videos after you apply a folder template and put related files in the folder, the toolbar displays the specialized buttons, such as Slide show and Preview Windows also comes with 4 libraries: Documents, Music, Pictures, and Videos which apply the same type of changeable folder template 20 Microsoft Windows 7 – Illustrated

Customizing Personal Folders 21 Microsoft Windows 7 – Illustrated Customize folder command Marketing Properties

Customizing a library Libraries are special folders that catalog files and folders in a central location, regardless of where you actually store them on your hard drive A library can contain links to files, other folders and other subfolders anywhere on your system You can customize a library folder by using the Properties dialog box where you can include or remove folders and set options to optimize, share, and display the library the Optimize this library command works just like the Optimize this folder command and lets you customize the library window to include specialized buttons on the toolbar, and you can also set the save folder location where you want to save a file when a library is selected 22 Microsoft Windows 7 – Illustrated

Displaying Disk and Folder Information When you create a file, it takes up space on the disk Files with text are typically smaller than files that contain only graphics File size is measured in bytes A byte is a unit of storage the size of a single character or pixel; it’s the base measurement for all other incremental units, A kilobyte (KB) is 1024 bytes of information A megabyte (MB) is 1,048,576 bytes, equal to 1,024 KB A gigabyte (GB) is equal to 1,024 megabytes A terabyte (TB) is equal to 1,024 gigabytes 23 Microsoft Windows 7 – Illustrated

Displaying Disk and Folder Information (cont.) A disk that can store 1.44 megabytes of data is capable of storing approximately 1.4 million characters or about 3,000 pages of information The size of the disk and how much usable space remains is important, because disks store a limited amount of data you can use the Properties command on a disk to display the disk size, used and free space, or on a folder to find out the size of its content, and change a disk label which is a name you can assign to a hard or removable disk When you label a hard disk or removable drive, the label appears in the Computer and Explorer windows 24 Microsoft Windows 7 – Illustrated

Displaying Disk and Folder Information (cont.) 25 Microsoft Windows 7 – Illustrated Disk Properties, General tab Quest Travel Properties, General tab

Compressing Files and Folders You can compress files in special folders that use software to decrease the size of the files they contain Compressed folders are useful for reducing the file size or one or more large files, which frees up disk space and reduces the time to transfer files to another computer, over a network or the Internet When a file is compressed, a copy is used in the compression and the original remains intact one or more files can be compressed in a compressed folder b y dragging them onto the compressed folder icon and displays as a zippered folder icon you can uncompress, or extract, a file and open it as you normally would or double-click and open a file directly; if opened directly Windows compresses it when it closes 26 Microsoft Windows 7 – Illustrated

Compressing Files and Folders (cont.) 27 Microsoft Windows 7 – Illustrated Extract Compressed Folders dialog box Compressed folder Creating a compressed folder

Managing Files and Folders on a CD or DVD A compact disc (CD) and digital video disc (DVD) are optical discs used to store large amounts of information Standard CDs typically hold up to 700 of data while DVDs hold 4.7 GB CD/DVDs have a low cost & convenient size making them an effective media for file storage You can copy, or burn, files and folders to (CD-R or DVD-R), which you cannot erase or (CD-RW) or DVD-RW) that you can reuse To create a CD or DVD you must have a CD or DVD recorder and blank CDs or DVDs 28 Microsoft Windows 7 – Illustrated

Managing Files and Folders on a CD or DVD (cont.) You can burn a disc using two formats the Live File System format (like a USB flash drive) allows you to copy files to a disc at any time; is the best choice if to be used with Windows XP or later the Mastered format (with a CD/DVD player), needs to copy all files all at once; this choice is best if the disc will be used on older computers 29 Microsoft Windows 7 – Illustrated

Managing Files and Folders on a CD or DVD (cont.) 30 Microsoft Windows 7 – Illustrated Contents of burned DVD disc Burn a Disc dialog box

Creating Music CDs or DVDs 31 Microsoft Windows 7 – Illustrated You can use Windows Media Player to create CDs or DVDs from music tracks you have stored in the Media Library You can copy: Windows Media (.wma), mp3, and.wav files from a media library to a disc to copy music from a CD, insert a blank disc in your computer, insert the CD into the CD disc drive, select the files you want, then click the rip CD button on the toolbar to burn a music disc, insert a blank recordable disc in the CD or DVD disc drive, then click Burn tab; songs in the library appear in the center pane, and a blank burn list appears in the right pane drag the music tracks or playlist to copy from the library to the burn list and then click Start burn

Summary 32 Microsoft Windows 7 – Illustrated Windows 7 gives you the option to customize the layout for each Explorer window Windows displays folder contents in a standard way, known as the default and the views are easily changed The Search box at the bottom of the Start menu and at the top of every Explorer window can be used to search for files and folders; automatically filters out items that don’t match the text you type Windows 7 comes with a personal folder that stores your most frequently used folders in one location

Summary (cont.) 33 Microsoft Windows 7 – Illustrated Indexes are used in searching and can be modified to customize and improve searching making locating files faster and easier Libraries are special folders that catalog files and folders in a central location, regardless of where you actually store them on your hard drive The size of the disk and how much space is available is important, because disks store a limited amount of data Compressed folders are useful for reducing the file size or one or more large files, which frees up disk space and reduces the time to transfer files You can use Windows Media Player to create CDs or DVDs