Finding Your Way Around Your Computer

Programs, tools, and information are available on your computer in a hierarchical structure. Information is stored in files that are organized in folders on hard disk drives and other storage devices (such as a CD, DVD, or USB flash drive). You can look at a representation of this storage structure by displaying the contents of the disks in the available drives.

The tools available to you in each folder window vary based on the folder's contents, but all include these basic features:

• The Address bar reflects your navigation path, beginning with the Windows symbol representing the overall Windows storage structure. The arrow after each folder name links to a list of its subfolders.

  Tip

  The path of a folder or file gives the address where the folder or file is stored on your hard disk. A typical path starts with the drive letter and lists the folders and subfolders, separated by backslashes (\), you have to navigate through to get to the folder or file.

  
  

• The toolbar presents menus and buttons specific to the content of the current window. When more buttons are available than can be shown, chevrons (>>) appear at the right end of the toolbar; clicking the chevrons displays a list of other commands.

• The Navigation pane displays your personal folders and (when you expand the Folders list) displays a hierarchical view of the entire storage structure of your computer. To display the contents of a personal folder, click the folder name. To expand a folder in the Folders list, point to the folder, and then click the white arrow that appears to its left. (Click the black arrow to hide the subfolders.)

• The Content pane displays files and folders stored in the currently selected folder or storage device.

Each drive is identified by a letter, and in some cases by a description. Your computer's primary hard drive (the one where the operating system is installed) is almost always identified by the letter C. (By tradition, the letters A and B are reserved for floppy disk drives, which have been superseded by higher capacity storage media and are rarely installed in computers these days.) If your computer has additional hard drives, they are assigned the next sequential letters, followed by any drives for removable media. You can navigate through the folder hierarchy on each drive, displaying the contents of folders within folders until you find the file you want. This navigation process is called browsing.

However, you don't have to browse to find the programs, tools, and information you need in your daily work. You don't even have to know precisely where things are stored, because Windows Vista provides a system of links that you can use to navigate directly to Windows Vista settings and tools, to programs, and to certain "buckets" of information. You have already seen evidence of this link system with the icons on the desktop and the links on the Start menu, but it is also used in other key components of Windows Vista, which we will explore here and in other topics of this book.

When Windows Vista was installed on your computer, it created three system folders:

• Program Files. Most programs (including the programs and tools that come with Windows Vista) install the files they need in subfolders of the Program Files folder. During installation, you are given the opportunity to designate a different folder. Thereafter, you shouldn't move, copy, rename, or delete the folders and files; if you do, the program will probably not run, nor will you be able to uninstall it.

• Users. The first time a user logs on to the computer, Windows Vista creates a user profile containing 12 subfolders: AppData, Contacts, Desktop, Documents, Downloads, Favorites, Links, Music, Pictures, Saved Games, Searches, and Videos. All but one of these folders is available from your personal folder, which you open by clicking your user name at the top of the Start menu. You can save documents, spreadsheets, graphics, and other files in your personal folder. As you work on your computer and personalize Windows, it saves information and settings specific to your individual user profile in this folder.

  Tip

  If you log on to your computer with more than one user name, Windows creates a user profile folder for each name. If you want to make files on the computer available regardless of how you log in, save them in the Public profile folder.

  
  

  The Users folder also contains a Public profile folder, the contents of which are accessible to anyone logged on to the computer. By default, the Public folder contains five subfolders: Public Documents, Public Downloads, Public Music, Public Pictures, and Public Videos. Computers running Windows Vista editions that support Windows Media Center also have a Recorded TV folder.

  Tip

  You can make the Public folder available to other computers on your network by selecting that option in the Network And Sharing Center. For more information, see "Sharing Drives and Folders" in Chapter 8, "Making Connections."

  
  

• Windows. Most of the critical operating system files are stored in this folder. You can look, but unless you really know what you are doing, don't touch! Most Windows Vista users will never need to access the files in the Windows folder.

  Troubleshooting

  If you upgraded your computer from an earlier version of Windows, the Windows folder from the earlier version might still remain on your computer. However, it will have been renamed to Windows.old during the upgrade process to avoid confusion.

  
  

In this exercise, you will explore the storage structure of your computer, and locate basic Windows Vista settings and tools, while learning different ways of getting to the information stored on your computer. There are no practice files for this exercise.

1.	Click the Start button, and then on the right side of the Start menu, click Computer. Start When you point to Computer, the Start menu icon changes from your user account picture to a representation of a computer system. Then when you click Computer, the Computer window opens. [View full size image] Troubleshooting The contents of your Computer window will correspond with the number and types of drives your computer can access, and will probably not be identical to those shown here. If you have used the Computer window before, the Folders list might be expanded. If the items you see in your Computer window are represented by words or icons in a different way than shown here, take a minute to adjust the view. On the toolbar, click the Views arrow, and then in the list, click Tiles. If the Folders list is expanded, click the Folders header to hide the list.
2.	In the Computer window, double-click Local Disk (C:) to display the contents of drive C. Icons identify each item in the window. For example, the icon on the hard disk drive with the Windows logo above it identifies the drive on which Windows Vista is installed.
3.	At the bottom of the Navigation pane, click Folders to display the Folders list. Troubleshooting If your Folders list is already displayed, skip Step 3. [View full size image] From this window, you can navigate through the storage structure of the selected drive in three ways: by double-clicking folders in the Content pane, by expanding folders in the Folders list, or by clicking locations in the Address bar. Important The folders and files stored directly on a drive are said to be stored in that drive's root directory. The root directory often contains system files that should not be modified or moved in any way.
4.	In the Folders list, under Local Disk (C:), point to the Users folder, and then click the arrow that appears to the left of the folder name. The folder expands to display a list of user accounts on the computer.
5.	In the Folders list, under the Users folder, click your own user name. Your personal folders appear in the window.
6.	In the Address bar, click the arrow to the right of Users, and then in the list, click Public. The folders available to all users appear in the window. [View full size image]
7.	To quickly experiment with window-management techniques, click the Maximize button in the upper-right corner of the open window. Maximize The window expands to completely fill your screen, and if your display is set to Windows Aero, the title bar changes from gray to black to provide a quick visual indicator of the window size. A Restore Down button replaces the Maximize button; clicking this button will return the window to its previous size. Tip You can manually resize a window by positioning the mouse pointer over the window's frame and, when the pointer changes to a double-headed arrow, dragging the frame to make the window smaller or larger. You cannot manually resize a maximized window; you must first restore the window to its non-maximized state.
8.	In the upper-right corner of the window, click the Minimize button. Minimize The folder disappears behind its taskbar button.
9.	Click the Public taskbar button once to redisplay the window. Then click its Close button. Close
10.	On the Start menu, click Control Panel. When you point to Control Panel, your user account picture changes to a representation of a touch-screen. Then the Control Panel window opens. [View full size image] You can access almost all the Windows Vista settings and tools by clicking links within Control Panel. If you know the specific setting or tool you're looking for, you can type it in the Search box in the upper-right corner. Control Panel then displays only the settings and tools containing or tagged with your search term. We discuss the features available from Control Panel throughout this book.