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Work with files and folders in Windows XP

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Looking for Windows Vista version of the article? Click here then.
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Working with files and folders is quite easy in Windows XP - Common Tasks pane lists typical actions related to selected file(s) or folder(s) and less common tasks are accessible via menus.

The best thing is that you can almost always undo your last action (copy, move, rename, delete) just by pressing Ctrl+Z on your keyboard or by opening Edit menu and selecting Undo <your last action name> (e.g. Undo Copy or Undo Rename, etc).

Selecting files and folders

This is what many people are not really familiar with. It's not really difficult at all.

You can select one item by clicking on it once.

If you want to select multiple consecutive items, click on the first item, then press and hold down Shift key on your keyboard and click on the last item. When finished, release the Shift key.
You can also select multiple consecutive items by holding down mouse's left button, moving mouse pointer over items and then releasing mouse button. During selecting, a transparent box for selection area is being displayed.

If you want to select multiple items that are not consecutive, click on the first item, then press and hold down Ctrl key on your keyboard and click on other items you want to select. If you selected a wrong item, click on it again to deselect it. When finished, release the Ctrl key.

If you want to select all items in folder contents, press Ctrl+A on your keyboard or open Edit menu and click Select All.

If you want to select almost all items, excluding only a few in a folder, select those few items you want to be excluded and then open Edit menu and click Invert Selection. Quite helpful, right?

Sorting files and folders

If you are using Details view for folders, all you have to do is click on a column name (e.g. Name, Size, Type, etc). The column that the folder is sorted by is indicated with a small arrowhead to the right of the column name (in the picture above, the folder is sorted by Name column). If the arrowhead points up, the column is sorted in ascending order, if the arrowhead points down, the column is sorted in descending order. You can toggle it just by clicking on the column name again.

If you are using some other view, you can sort only in ascending order. To change sorting, right-click on an empty area (not on files or folders) of the folder, select Arrange Icons By and then click on the sorting basis you like - Name, Size, Type or Modified.

You can also sort the folder automatically by choosing Auto Arrange.

If you want to change folder view type, click on Views button in folder toolbar and select the view you want.

Creating files and folders

To create a file or folder, right-click on an empty area of the folder, select New and choose what you want to create. In this example, I'll create a new folder called Downloads.

A new folder, first called just "New Folder" appears. Type in the name you want and then press Enter key on your keyboard.

That's it!

Copying and moving files and folders

Select a file or folder you want to copy or move. For a file, click Copy this file or Move this file in Common Tasks pane on the left side of the folder. For a folder, click Copy this folder or Move this folder, accordingly.

If you want to copy or move multiple items (files or folders, or both), select them and click Copy the selected items or Move the selected items from the Common Tasks pane accordingly.

In case you do not have Common Tasks enabled, you can open Edit menu and click Copy To Folder... or Move To Folder... command.

Then a dialog box opens, select the folder you want to copy or move selected item(s) to and then click Copy or Move button accordingly.
You can also make a new folder for the items by clicking Make New Folder button, typing in a name for the new folder and pressing Enter key on your keyboard. Then click Copy or Move button.

In case a file or folder with that name already exists in the destination folder, you will be prompted about replacing it. There is size and modification date for the file already existing in the destination folder and also size and modification date for the file you want to copy or move. Make sure you are replacing a correct file or folder!
Click Yes to replace, No to keep the existing file or folder.

You can always undo your last copy or move action by pressing Ctrl+Z on your keyboard or by opening Edit menu and clicking Undo Copy or Undo Move.

Renaming files and folders

If you want to rename a file or folder, click on it once and press F2 key on your keyboard or select Rename this file or Rename this folder from Common Tasks pane or open File menu and select Rename.

There is a very important step about renaming files (not folders) - every file has an extension that defines its type. This extension usually consists of a dot and three letters. Extension is always the very last part of a file name. So ".jpg" indicates a JPEG image file, ".doc" indicates a Microsoft Word document, etc.
Please do not change the file extension unless you really know what you are doing!

To rename a folder, just type in the new name and press Enter key on your keyboard.

To rename a file, click before the dot, hold down Backspace key on your keyboard to delete the file name without changing its extension, type in the new name and press Enter on your keyboard.
To rename multiple consequtive files, use TAB key without pressing ENTER. First press F2, type a new name for the file and then press Tab to move on to the next file; Shift+Tab will move back to previous file. You should press Enter only after you've finished renaming the last file.

If you accidentally deleted or changed file's extension, Windows XP will notify you about it. Click No and try again.

Remember, you can always undo your last action by pressing Ctrl+Z on your keyboard!

Deleting files and folders

To delete a file or folder, click on it and press Delete (or Del) key on your keyboard. You can also click Delete this file or Delete this folder in Common Tasks pane or open File menu and click Delete.

A warning dialog appears, click Yes to delete the file or folder.

If you want to delete multiple items at once, select them and press Delete key on your keyboard. Or click Delete the selected items in Common Tasks pane or open File menu and click Delete.

Please note that these files or folders will be moved to Recycle Bin after clicking Yes. Recycle Bin is a place where deleted items reside for a while (for days or even months, depending on your hard disk size) for easy restoration. When Recycle Bin gets full and new items are deleted, the oldest items in Recycle Bin will be permanently deleted and there is no easy way of restoring them.
This means that the files or folders will not be permanently deleted until Recycle Bin is full. You can press Ctrl+Z on your keyboard to restore it now or open Recycle Bin later to restore it. Read more about Recycle Bin below.

In case you want to permanently delete something (without moving it to Recycle Bin first), press Shift+Delete on your keyboard. But be very careful with that!

Creating compressed (zipped) folders

Sometimes it is a good idea to compress files or folder to save hard disk space or send multiple items by e-mail. Most e-mail servers do not accept executable files (programs with extensions .exe or .com or scripts with extensions .bat, .vbs, .cmd) as e-mail attachments, so it is necessary to compress them first.

To compress files or folders, select them first. Then right-click on a selected item, choose Send To and Compressed (zipped) Folder.

Although the feature is called Compressed Folder, only one file with .zip extension will be created. The name of the compressed file will be the selected file or folder name plus .zip extension - for example, if you select a file named My Pet.jpg, the compressed file name will be My Pet.zip; if you select folders named My Pictures and My Downloads, the compressed file name will be My Pictures.zip.

Please note that Compressed Folder does not compress empty folders. In that case, a warning will be displayed. Click OK, deselect the empty folder by holding down Ctrl key on keyboard and clicking on the empty folder. Then try compressing again.

Extracting all files from Compressed Folders

To extract a Compressed Folders contents, right-click on the compressed folder and click Extract All....

An Extraction Wizard appears. Click Next.

Usually the default destination folder is fine, but you can also browse for a different folder if you want to by clicking on Browse... button.
Click Next.

After extraction is complete, you can click Finish. If you do not want to see the extracted files in a new window, clear the Show extracted files box before clicking Finish.

Extracting only some files from Compressed Folders

If you don't want to extract all files, double-click on the compressed folder to open it. Then select the items you want to extract and click Copy the selected items on Common Tasks pane or open Edit menu and click Copy To Folder... command.

Select the folder you want to extract the files to and click Copy.

That's it! Close the Compressed Folder and you're done.

Using Recycle Bin

Recycle Bin is a place where deleted items reside for a while (for days or even months, depending on your hard disk size and free space on it) for easy restoration. The files in Recycle Bin are kept safe from overwriting although the disk space used by them is marked as free (so that you can see the correct amount of free disk space in My Computer).
When Recycle Bin gets full and new items are deleted, the oldest items in Recycle Bin will be permanently deleted to make enough room for the new ones and there is no easy way of restoring permanently deleted items.

To open Recycle Bin, double-click its icon on Desktop.

If you have some folder window open, click on the down arrow of Address Bar and find Recycle Bin icon in the bottom of the list. You can also click Folders button to open folder hierarchy and select Recycle Bin from there, but this action hides Common Tasks pane.

Recycle Bin acts as any other folder, so you can select items, change views and sorting order as in other folders. You can also undo the last action by pressing Ctrl+Z on your keyboard or by opening Edit menu and selecting Undo.

To restore items, select them, right-click on a selected item and click Restore. The items will be restored to the location they were deleted from and they will disappear from Recycle Bin.

To restore all items, click Restore all items in Common Tasks pane or press Ctrl+A on your keyboard to select all items, open File menu and click Restore.

To permanently delete all items from Recycle Bin, click Empty the Recycle Bin in Common Tasks pane or open File menu and click Empty Recycle Bin (no files can be selected to see this command!).
You can also right-click on Recycle Bin icon on Desktop and click Empty Recycle Bin.

Looking for Windows Vista version of the article? Click here then.
Looking for Windows 7 version of the article? Click here then.

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