Chapter 4. Flipping Through Files, Folders, Flash Drives, Libraries, and CDs

In This Chapter

  • Understanding the Computer program

  • Navigating drives, folders, and flash drives

  • Understanding the new libraries in Windows 7

  • Creating and naming folders

  • Selecting and deselecting items

  • Copying and moving files and folders

  • Writing to CDs, memory cards, and floppies

The Computer program is what causes people to wake up from Windows' easy-to-use computing dream, clutching a pillow in horror. These people bought a computer to simplify their work — to banish that awful filing cabinet with squeaky drawers.

But click the little Computer icon on the Start menu, start poking around inside your new PC, and that old filing cabinet reappears. Folders, with even more folders stuffed inside of them, still rule the world. And unless you grasp Windows' folder metaphor, you may not find your information very easily.

Plus, Windows 7 complicates folders by introducing a new super folder called a library: a single folder that simultaneously shows the contents of several other folders.

This chapter explains how to use the Windows 7 filing program, called Computer. (Windows XP called the program My Computer.) Along the way, you ingest a big enough dose of Windows file management for you to get your work done. Windows may bring back your dreaded file cabinet, but at least the drawers don't squeak, and files never fall behind the cabinet.

Browsing Your Computer's File Cabinets

To keep your programs and files neatly arranged, ...

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