Navigate in Explorer

Imagine your computer as a big box with all different drawers.
How orderly you manage these drawers, the quicker you find something.
This is so in your house, this is so in Windows 7. Or almost.
In your home your wife does this, you have to do it in Windows 7 Windows Explorer.

To open Windows Explorer, we have several possibilities.
One way is to right click the “Start” button and choose “Windows Explorer” in the pop-up menu.
A second way is to click your username in the start menu.
And the quickest way, I think, is the “Windows Explorer” icon on the taskbar.
What you do is not important, in all these cases “Windows Explorer” is opened, albeit in a different location.

At the top of the window, we find the address which is the “path” of retrieval for the selected document or folder.
To its right we have the search field. If you want to make this field larger place your mouse pointer between the address bar and the search field, and when it changes into a two-pointer, drag it to the desired size.

If you want to search for a document in a particular folder, first select the folder in the navigation pane, then place the cursor in the search field and start typing.

If you want to change the display of files and folders, click the “Change your View” (1) button.
If you want to look into the document without opening it, click the “Show preview pane” (2) button.

If you want to search the entire computer, it may take a while, as Windows needs to search (1) everything. You can see the progress of this search in the address bar.

If the search is complete and you have not found what you want, then you have the ability to search the libraries, search the computer and even search the Internet.

Copying and moving files and folders

Windows Explorer is not only to navigate between different files, we can also do several things with folders and files.

We can move folders or documents.
First open Windows Explorer two times. In the first window, navigate to the folder from which you want to move a document and in the second window select the folder to where you want to move the document.
Click and drag to move the document from one window into another window.

If you want to copy the file right click the file, choose “Copy” from the pop-up menu, then right-click an empty spot in the second window, and select “Paste” from the pop-up menu.

Another tip.
If you wish to have a copy of a file to be placed in another folder, such as the desktop, then click and drag this file out of the window to this folder, while holding the Ctrl key on your keyboard pressed.

Featured Courses

• Downloading iPad Apps
• Lesson 1: Introduction to Publisher
• Lesson 65: File Formats