Jan's Files and Folders: Folder Tree

Step-by-Step: Folder Tree

What you will learn:

to open a view of the folder tree
to change the view
to expand and collapse the folder tree
to view folders on removable media

Start with:

Note: You do not need to make your windows as small as the illustrations. Those are small to speed up the loading of the web page.

Open an Explorer Window: Win98

Open the Start menu by clicking on it.
Alternate method: Press ÿ the Windows key on the bottom row of your keyboard, if there is such a key.
Move your pointer to Programs . As you hover, the menu opens another level. It cascades.
Click on the menu item Windows Explorer . An Explorer window opens which shows the folder tree for Drive C: in the folder tree pane on the left. The right pane shows the contents, including files which do not show on the left.
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The actual contents of your panes is probably different.
If the right pane is not using the Details view, select it from the View menu.

Open an Explorer Window: WinXP

In WinXP double-click the My Computer icon on the desktop to open a new window or in the Start menu select My Computer.

A window opens that displays the various drives and special folders on the right and a set of tasks on the left.
Click on the Folders button on the toolbar to show the folder tree in the left pane. The window shows the folder tree for the whole computer, listing all of the drives and special folders.
If the right pane is not using the Details view, select Details from the View menu.

Open the Folder Tree: Vista

In Windows Vista, the folder tree is always available in a window that shows files and folders, but it may be hidden at the bottom of the Navigation pane.

In Windows Vista, double-click the Computer icon on the Desktop or from the Start menu select Computer.

A Computer window opens that shows the various drives. The default view is Tiles for the drives.
Click on the Folders button at the bottom of the Navigation pane to show the folder tree. The Favorite Links section may or may not still be visible.
Use the Views button to select the Details view.

Computer window showing folder tree of drives in Details view (Vista)

Open the Removable Disk

Click in the left pane on the icon for your Class disk, which is the disk where you are storing your class files, to select it. In the right pane you will now see the contents of your Class disk which should have the two folders that you created in the previous lesson, class and my docs.

In WinXP and Vista the Details view is not inherited when you open a new drive or folder.

Floppy Drive Noises: If you are using a floppy disk for your files, you may hear the floppy drive spinning up to access the data on the disk. Some drives are a lot louder than others. Learn what your floppy drive sounds like. When something is wrong with the disk or the drive, the sound is often different, perhaps more of a grinding noise.

Create New Folder

Double-click in the right pane on the folder my docs to open it. Your two folders, excel docs and word docs are shown.
From the menu bar select File > New > Folder or right click and select New > Folder from the context menu.
Problem: in Windows Vista- Menu bar is not showing .
Solution: Press the ALT key.
Type paint docs as the name of the new folder. Yes, we just deleted this folder and here it comes again!
Click somewhere or press the ENTER key. Your new folder is created and named.

Views in Explorer

Clicking a drive or folder in the folder tree will display the contents on the right, but it does not expand the folder tree on the left. Double-clicking a drive or folder on the left does expand the tree, just like clicking the symbols, or .

Double -click on the icon for Drive C: in the folder tree to open it on that side. Its contents show in the right pane.
Scroll the right pane, if necessary, to see all the items listed.
Below the folders you will see files. Notice that both panes display the folders, but only the right pane can show files. The files have different icons depending on what the file extension is. (Your window may not show the extensions.)
Scroll the left pane, if necessary, to see all the items listed. No files will show, just drives, folders, and some special items like the Recycle Bin and Control Panel.
Change the view type, using each of choices in the View menu. These are somewhat different for each version of Windows. Choose Details View last.
How does the right pane change with each different View?

Do you see advantages or disadvantages for particular views?

Views of C: in Win98

Views of C: in Windows Vista
The default width of a column in the Small Icons and List views, depends on the length of the names in the list. Here is yet another reason to keep file names reasonably short.

Expand & Collapse Folder Tree Branches

In the Navigation pane (left pane), click on the icon or name for your removable disk. The right pane will show the top level folders on your disk - class and my docs.
Experiment:
In the folder tree pane on the left, click the symbols beside various drives and folders to expand and collapse the folder tree. Play around a bit.

Does the right pane change as you expand and collapse the folder tree?
Click on various folder and drive names in the folder tree.

What does the right pane show?

Conclusion: When something is selected on the left, its contents show on the right. You can expand and collapse the folder tree without changing the right pane by clicking on the symbols beside a folder name.

WinXP by default automatically expands a branch in the folder tree when you select it. This keeps the left and right panes synchronized if you click on something in the left pane. Vista does not do this by default. This behavior is part of "simple folder view", which is a choice in the Folder Options dialog on the View tab under Advanced settings. In both WinXP and Vista this setting also controls whether or not you see dotted lines in the folder tree between levels in the folder tree.

Arrange Icons in Contents Pane

In the folder tree pane, click on or the icon for drive C (it may still be expanded from your earlier work). Both panes show all the folders on the drive. The right pane also shows any files in the root directory C:\.
Double-click on the folder Windows in the folder tree to display its contents in the right pane and to expand its branch at the same time.
Problem: No folder named Windows on drive C:
Sometimes Windows may not be installed to the default folder.
Solution: Look through the folder tree to find where the operating system was installed. (We are assuming that you are working on a computer that is using Windows as the operating system!)

At the top of the right pane in the Details view, some labels for properties of the files are displayed: Name, Size, Type, Modified or Date Modified. These column headings are actually sort buttons that manage the order of the display of this pane. Clicking one will reorder the display based on that property. Clicking it again will reverse the order.

In Windows Vista the buttons appear at the top of the Contents pane for all views. For previous versions, the sort buttons appear only in the Details view.

Resize columns: You can adjust the widths of the sort buttons and thus the columns in Details view. This is useful when only part of the information will fit. Put your pointer over the right edge of a column heading. The pointer changes to resize shape. Drag to the left to reduce the column size. Drag to the right to enlarge the column. Double-click to size the column to fit the widest item displayed.
Experiment:
Click on a property button to sort the display. Scroll the pane to see what changes occurred. Click the same button again to reverse the display. Sort with each of the properties. Try the various Group by and Stack by choices in the right click menu. Finish with the pane not grouped or stacked and sorted by Name in regular alphabetical order.
How they sort:

Name sorts alphabetically with folders first.
Size sorts files based on size but leaves folders in alphabetical order.
Modified date sorts based on the date the file or folder was last changed.
Type sorts the files by type, which is indicated by a file's extension and icon. However, some extensions are treated as the same type, so the display is not exactly alphabetical for extensions. For example, the extensions exe and dll are grouped together because they are both executable files. That means that they run programs.
In the folder tree pane scroll up to find drive C.
Click on the symbol beside the icon for drive C to collapse this branch of the tree. Whoosh! A much shorter list!
Remembering folder options choices: The arrangement that you choose for the icons applies to the open folder only. Windows can remember your choices for several recently viewed folders. There is no way to make your choices stick permanently. Once the maximum number of folders is reached, making more changes will replace the oldest choices. The maximum for Vista is supposed to be 5000. You can apply your choices for the current folder to All folders in the Folder Options dialog.

Files & Folders: Folder Tree