Windows Explorer

Windows Explorer is the built-in file and folder manager that has been a part of the Microsoft Windows operating systems since Windows 95.

Windows Explorer is a very useful tool that displays detailed information about your files, folders, and drives. It provides a nice overview of how all of your files and folders are organized on the hard drive. It also makes it very easy to work with your files and folders. You can copy, move, or rename your files and folders quite easily.

The easiest way to access Windows Explorer is to right-click on the START button in the lower left-hand corner of the desktop, then left-click on "Explore" from the resulting menu. You can also right-click on the "My Computer" icon and select "Explore" just as you did when clicking the START button. Also, if you have a keyboard that has a "Windows Key" (it has the Windows logo on it), you can press and hold the Windows key and press the letter "E".

Windows Explorer will open as shown below.

You will notice that the windows Explorer Window is has two separate areas called "panes" as in panes of glass. The left pane shows the contents of your hard drive in a "hierarchical" structure. Hierarchical just means that you have a topmost folder which expands into other folders, and then those folders can expand to show more folders, and so on and so on. If a folder has a plus sign "+" next to it, it means that you can left-click on the plus sign to expand that folder further. The right pane of Windows Explorer simply displays the contents of any folder that you click on the left pane. In this way you can easily view all of the folders and files on your computer. It also makes moving them around easier as well.

Opening a Program

Let's open a Program File using Windows Explorer.

First, in the left pane, I'm going to click on Local Disk (C:) to expand the folders inside it. Then I'm going to go down the list of folders inside C: until I get to the Program Files Folder (folder lists are in alphabetical order by default). I see that the Program Files folder has a plus sign next to it, so I click on the plus sign to expand it. I will then follow the list of folders inside Program Files until I get to the Internet Explorer folder. I notice that the Internet Explorer folder also has a plus sign next to it. This time, instead of the plus sign, I'm going to click on the name of the folder, "Internet Explorer". You'll notice that doing this also expands the folder in the left pane. You'll also notice that the contents of the Internet Explorer folder are now displayed in the right pane. In the list of contents you'll see the big blue "e" which is the "executable" file for Internet Explorer. An executable file is what tells the program to begin running.

Moving a File

Let's take a look at how to move a file using Windows Explorer.

First, I have to locate the file. The file I want to move is located in a folder on my Desktop. In Windows Explorer I will use the left pane to find the Desktop folder, which is always at the top of the folder tree. Then I will left-click on the Desktop folder to highlight it. That will cause the contents of the Desktop folder to be displayed in the right pane as well as the left pane. I can now see the "My Stuff" folder which contains the document that I want to move. In the left pane I will now left-click on the "My Stuff" folder to highlight it. This causes the contents of the My Stuff folder to be displayed in the right pane. The right pane now shows the document that I want to move. With the left mouse button I will now click on the document name and hold down the left mouse button. Then by moving the mouse I will "drag" the document over to the left pane and over the "My Documents" folder where I will then stop holding down the left mouse button. You will notice if you are following along, that the document is now gone from the right pane. If we now click on the My Documents folder in the left pane, its contents will now appear in the right pane. You can see that the document is now in the My Documents folder.

Copying a File

If I wanted to make a copy of the file that I moved in the previous section I would follow the same steps as before, except this time, I would hold down the CTRL key on the keyboard while I am dragging the file over. This would place a copy of the file in the My Documents folder while leaving the original file in the My Stuff folder.

These steps also apply when moving or copying folders. The difference being that when you move or copy a folder, everything inside the folder is transferred as well.

Creating a New Folder

You will soon find out after using Microsoft Windows for a while, that there is always several different ways of doing the same thing. For example, if I wanted to create a new folder using Windows Explorer, I could right-click in an open area of the right pane and bring up the menu to create a new folder, text document, etc. I can also accomplish the same thing by clicking "File" in the menu bar at the top of the Window, then selecting "New" from the resulting menu, and finally clicking "Folder" which will create a folder in the right hand pane. The new folder will be created and the name will be highlighted. Type in a name for the new folder. Just make sure that before you create the new folder that you are in the right location in the left pane. The new folder will always become a subfolder of the folder selected in the left pane.

The Menu Bar

The Menu Bar is the bar just under the dark blue bar at the very top of the Windows Explorer window. You will see it has the button names: File, Edit, View, Favorites, Tools, and Help. Let's take a look at each one and some of the choices they provide.

The File button

The File button will have different choices depending upon whether you have a folder selected or a file.

For a folder, you will see "New" so that you can create a new folder or document like we covered earlier. In addition, you'll see the "Delete" selection which will delete whatever folder you have highlighted, the "Rename" selection allows you to change the name of the folder, and the "Properties" selection so you can view information about the folder such as its location on the hard drive, how much data is in the folder, and when it was created.

For a file, in addition to all of the selections shown for folders, you'll see the "Open" selection which will open the file for viewing. The "Edit" selection which will open the file so that changes (edits) to the file can be made. The "Print" selection is obviously for printing a paper copy of the document. The "Open With.." selection allows you to choose which application (only installed applications) to use to open the file.

Files also will have a "Send To.." selection which gives you several choices on where to send the file including the desktop, an e-mail recipient (your e-mail program will open automatically with the file contents in the text area of the e-mail), another drive location on your computer, a floppy disk or CD, or your "My Documents" folder.

The Edit button

The Edit button selections are the same for folders and files. At the top of the menu you'll see the "Undo" selection, although it may be "grayed out" unless you are actually working on a document. If you make a mistake while editing your document, you can click on the "undo" selection and it will change anything that you have done back to the way it was, one step at a time. The more you click on it the farther back you go. The "undo" selection becomes especially helpful if you have made some "big" changes such as moving a sentence or even a paragraph.

The next selection you'll see is "cut" as in "cut and paste". It allows you to cut (remove) a folder or file from one place and paste (add) it somewhere else. Just make sure you have the correct file or folder selected in the Windows Explorer folder tree.

The "copy" selection allows you to make a copy of a file or folder that you select and paste it into another folder or window.

The "select all" feature allows you to highlight all of the files or folders within a certain window. This is useful when you want to move the entire contents of a folder to a different location. After clicking on "select all", you would click on "cut" or "copy" to move the files. Or, if you no longer need the files you would then click on the File button and choose "delete" to send the files to the Recycle Bin.

The "invert selection" feature comes in handy if you want to select most of the files in a folder to move, copy, or delete, but not all of them. In this case, you would click on the files that you want to keep by holding down the "Ctrl" button as you left-click each file that you want to "keep" in place. Once all of the "keep" files are highlighted, you would then click on the "invert selection" feature, which would cause all of the files that you selected to keep to not be highlighted, and all of the other files to become highlighted, so that you can cut, copy, or delete them.

The View button

The "View" button basically lets you configure how your Window Explorer windows looks.

The first selection is "Toolbars". The Toolbars selection expands to show "Standard Buttons", "Address Bar", "Links", and "Lock the Toolbars", and "Customize...".

The "Standard Buttons" refers to the "Back" button which has a large green circle with a white arrow pointing to the left. This allows you to "page back" to a previous window that you have viewed. It also shows the "Forward" button which, of course, allows you to "page forward" to the next window. Next to those buttons is a yellow folder with a green arrow pointing up. This button allows you to go "up" one level in the folder tree of Windows Explorer. Next to that is the "Search" button with the magnifying glass icon. Clicking on the "Search" button changes the folder list in the left pane to the "Search Companion" window. From there you can perform a search for files, folders, pictures, music, etc. We'll cover the details of the Search Companion in the "Computer Tutorials" section of the website. The Standard Buttons will only be viewable if there is a checkmark next to it. The next button after the Search button is the "Folders" button which will change the left pane of windows Explorer back to the folder tree from the Search Companion. The next button is the "Views" button where you can change the look of your icons from large to small, to a list, or to a detailed list.

Under the Standard Buttons selection is the "Address Bar" selection. The Address Bar is the long horizontal window that shows you the path to the folder or file that you have open. Each slash mark from right to left in the address bar represents going "up" one level in the folder tree. The root of the path is always on the far left.

Under the Address Bar selection is the "Links" selection. Putting a checkmark next to Links allows you to have your internet website links displayed along the same row as the Address Bar.

Under the Links selection you'll see "Lock the Toolbars". By checking "Lock the Toolbars" you will be unable to resize and manipulate your Toolbar choices.

Under the Lock the Toolbars selection you'll see "Customize...". Clicking on Customize will bring up a window where you can add or remove additional buttons on your Toolbar.

You can also access the Standard Buttons menu by right-clicking in an open area of the toolbar.

Back to the View menu, another useful selection is the "Explorer Bar" which contains several options including "Search", which will change the left pane of Windows Explorer to the "Search Companion". The "Favorites" option, which will display all of your favorite website links in the left pane, and the "History" option which will display all of your recently visited websites. There is also a "Folders" option to change the left pane back to the folder tree. Another feature of the Explorer Bar which is helpful to new computer users is the "Tip of the Day" option. Selecting this option opens a window at the bottom of the right pane which has a helpful tip on how to perform a task in Windows Explorer.

The Favorites button

The Favorites button when clicked will display a "drop-down" list of your favorite websites. To add a website to the list, click on the Favorites button when you are at the website that you want to add. From the top of the resulting menu click on "Add to Favorites". A window will appear with name of the website shown as it will be displayed in the list. You can leave the name "as is" or change it to something more descriptive.

The Tools button

The Tools button has a selection called "Folder Options" which opens a new window where you can change the look and functionality of your computer folders. For example, say you have changed the view of your folders in Windows Explorer to the "List" view. You can then click on the Tools button, then the View tab of the Folder Options window. From there you can click on "Apply to All Folders" which will change the display of all folder lists on your computer to the "List" view.

The Help button

The Help button has a selection called "Help and Support Center" which if you click on it will open up the Help and Support Center window. From here you can search for an answer to any question you may have concerning Windows Explorer, or pick a topic and view information about it.

That's about it for Windows Explorer. Use it until you are comfortable with all of the features and you will find that it makes working with your files and folders much easier.

Return From Windows Explorer to Computer Basics

Return to the Home Page