Windows 2000 Administration in a Nutshell

Name

files and folders

Synopsis

Elements of the hierarchical filesystem used to store data and programs in Windows 2000.

Description

The basic concept of files and folders is familiar to anyone who has worked with earlier versions of Microsoft Windows, so I will cover it here only briefly. Regardless of which disk filesystem (FAT, FAT32, or NTFS) is used to format local partitions and volumes, Windows 2000 organizes files by grouping them into folders (also called directories). These folders are themselves grouped hierarchically into a tree of files and folders starting with the root of each partition or volume.

For example, the executable for the game of Solitaire (sol.exe) by default is found in the System32 folder, which is in the \Winnt folder, which is in the root of C: drive. The location of sol.exe can be specified either by its absolute path (C:\Winnt\System32\sol.exe) or by the relative path from the current directory (e.g., if the current directory is C:\Winnt\Help, then the relative path to sol.exe would be ..\System32\sol.exe).

The local filesystem can be accessed in many different ways. For example, to display the icon representing sol.exe, you could:

• Open Windows Explorer from the Accessories program group and browse the folder hierarchy in the lefthand pane until C:\Winnt\System32 is selected, and then locate sol.exe in the righthand pane. You can then click the Search button on the toolbar to open a lefthand Search pane and use it to find sol.exe within System32.

• Open My ...