Now, to open a file in its program, double-click on its icon in the right-hand pane. To delete (remove) files is the same as removing shortcuts from the desktop. If you accidentally delete a file you wanted, open the Recycle Bin (double-click on its desktop icon) right-click on the file and select ‘restore’ from the popup-menu. If you want to permanently get rid of all files in the Recycle Bin, right-click on the Recycle Bin and select ‘Empty Recycle Bin’ from the popup-menu. Deleting or restoring folders works the same way.

If you are going to sort your files properly into folders, you need to know how to create them. To create a folder, navigate to the folder you want the new folder in. Then, right-click on a blank area of the right-hand pane to bring up the popup-menu. Then select ‘New->Folder’ from the menu. Type the name of the folder and press ‘Enter’. To arrange file in folders, you also need to be able to copy and move both files and folders. Moving means that the file or folder goes to the new location and is no longer in the old location. To move a file or folder, simply drag-and-drop the file or folder from where it is in the right-hand pane on top of the folder where you want it to be in either the right or left-hand pane. Copying means that the file or folder stays where it is, and a duplicate is created in the new location. To copy a file or folder you right-drag-and-drop (that is, drag-and-drop by holding down the right mouse button instead of the left one) from its old location on top of the new one. A popup-menu will come up asking if you want to copy, move, or create a shortcut to the file or folder. If you want to copy, select ‘Copy Here’.

If you want to search the whole computer for a specific file or folder there are two possible ways to do it. Some versions of Windows Explorer have a button on the toolbar that says ‘Find’, click on this. In all versions of Windows you can go to ‘Start->Find->Files or Folders’ or ‘Start->Search’. Some versions of the search have extra features to make it easier that it displays first. To bypass these click ‘All files and folders’. If your version came up with text boxes right away you don’t have to do this. Once the text boxes are up you can select what drive or folder to search from the combo box. The topmost text box is where you type all or part of the filename. You can also create wildcard searches. To do this you type letters that are in the filename along with symbols called wildcards. The wildcards are ‘*’ and ‘?’. ‘*’ represents an infinite number of characters or nothing. ‘?’ represents exactly one character. So ‘?ello.doc’ would find ‘Hello.doc’ and ‘jello.doc’. ‘Si*.*’ would find all files that start with ‘Si’.

Finally there are file properties. Different kinds of files have different properties and different versions of Windows can have different kinds of properties allowed. You can experiment with these if you want. To open the properties for any file, right-click on it and select ‘Properties’. In the window that comes up you can change all the properties of the file that can be changed. In this window it also shows the name and location of the file and its size in bytes, kilobytes (KB, 1 024 bytes, usually estimated at 1 000 bytes), or megabytes. It also shows the attributes, the most commonly used and useful of which is the read-only attribute. When you check the read-only check box and click OK, Windows won’t let any program change the file. If you uncheck the box Windows will let programs change it again.