Windows 8.1: The Missing Manual

Desktop Windows: File Explorer

Windows got its name from the rectangles on the screen—the windows—where all your computer activity takes place. You look at a Web page in a window, type into a window, read email in a window, and look at lists of files in a window. But as you create more files, stash them in more folders, and open more programs, it’s easy to wind up paralyzed before a screen awash with cluttered, overlapping rectangles.

Fortunately, Windows has always offered icons, buttons, and other inventions to help you keep these windows under control—and Windows 8 positively crawls with them.

The primary tool at the desktop is now called File Explorer (formerly Windows Explorer), which just means “a window that contains files and folders.” But there’s more to it than meets the eye, as you’ll find out shortly.