FILES AND FOLDERS

1)      A FOLDER is a container for FILES and other FOLDERS

2)      FILES come in 3 flavors OPERATIONAL files, e.g. WinXP, APPLICATION files, e.g. MSWord, Excel, Quickbooks, MSPaint etc.,  DATA files, those things that the end user, like you, creates using application software, e.g. letters, pictures, spreadsheets, or all the accounting information for your business.

3)      You CREATE a FOLDER by opening the window where you want the folder to be, like My Documents.  Place your pointer on an empty space in that window – not on a file or folder or icon or address bar, RIGHT Click, Select NEW – FOLDER.  The new folder will appear with the name NEW FOLDER highlighted. TYPE the name you want for the folder then press ENTER.

4)      To RENAME a file or folder:  RIGHT Click on the file or folder. Select RENAME and type in the new name then press ENTER.   (WARNING – when renaming files, be sure to keep the 3 letter extension of the file name the same, e.g. .doc, .jpg, .gif, .xls, .bmp)  Note: by default, Windows XP hides the 3 letter file extension.  

For a better understanding of file names we will make the 3 letter extensions visible. Open MY COMPUTER.  Click on TOOLS - FOLDER OPTIONS.  On the window that opens, there are 3 tabs across the top. Click on VIEW.  In the box in the lower half of that window look for the phrase "Hide extensions for known file types" . There should be a check in the box to the left of that phrase.  Click (once) on that check and it will disappear. This will allow you to see all file extensions. Click on OK at the bottom of the window. 

5)      File and Folder names can be up to 255 characters long.  They CANNOT contain any of the following characters:  < >  / \  *?  : |  (If you want to be safe, use only numbers, letters and - _ .)

6)      Organize your DATA files so that you can easily find them.  Keep all your data in My Documents when possible.  Create Folders to organize your data by topic.

7)      DRIVES are hardware devices used to store Files and Folders.

8)      The C: drive is the hard drive located inside your computer.  Some computers have more than one hard drive.  The second one will be labeled D:

9)      The A: dive is the 3.5” Floppy drive.  You have to stick the floppy in the drive.  It can hold up to 1.44MB of data.  This allows you to transfer data between two computers.  These drives are being phased out because any file small enough to fit on a floppy can usually be sent by email.

10)  You also have a CDROM or CDRW or DVD (or a combination of these).  This could be assigned any drive letter. A CD holds about 650MB and a DVD holds 4.7GB.

11) You can view your files and folders by using MY COMPUTER or MY DOCUMENTS.