Lab 2 File system - Haywood Community College



CIS110 - File System Exercise

Introduction

In this worksheet, you will explore the Windows file system, common file extensions, and ways to manage the file system on your computer. Throughout this exercise you will use the file system utility program File Explorer which is configured with 2 sections referred to as a right pane and a left pane. You may wish to reference pages FM 5 to 9 of your Microsoft Office text for additional information.

Objectives

At the end of the tutorial you should be able to:

• Create valid names for files and folders

• Demonstrate how to use file management features of application software and operating system utilities

• Demonstrate you can construct and trace file paths

• Use the drag and drop method of moving or copying files

Preliminaries

You will need to use File Explorer for the following exercises. There are a several ways to open this program. The following are two common and easy methods to start File Explorer:

• Click the Start button, then Click the Computer option found on the right side of the Start menu

– Or –

• Press and hold down the Windows key on your keyboard and tap the letter 'e'

You will also need to set your view in File Explorer to match the one used in the following examples.

1. Click Organize on the tool bar in the upper portion of File Explorer to display a list of options.

2. Click Layout from the list of options and a sub-menu is displayed which contains a Menu bar option.

3. If the Menu bar option does not have a check mark next to it, click Menu bar to place a check mark there. If the check mark is already there, click in any part of the empty space in the right pane to close the menu.

4. A menu bar with the options File, Edit, View, Tools, Help should be shown near the top of the display.

5. Double-click on Local Disk (C:) found in the Hard Disk Drives section at the top of the right pane.

Note that your main hard drive could possibly be listed slightly differently such as OS (C:).

6. Click on the View menu item, then click the Details option

7. Click on the Tools menu item, and locate the Folder Options… item

8. Click the Folder Options… line (the 3 dots indicates this item displays a dialog box)

9. Select the View tab of the Folder Options dialog

10. Verify the Hide extensions for known file types box is checked. If not, click to place a check mark there

11. Click the Apply to Folders button found in the upper section of the Folder Options dialog box

12. An informational message is displayed, click Yes

13. Click the Apply button in the bottom section of the Folder Options dialog box, then OK

(Note: The Apply button may be dimmed and unavailable if the Hide extensions box was already checked)

14. Close File Explorer

15. Start File Explorer again

16. Now the Details view we selected will be the default view for all folders

File Explorer Overview

[pic]

Section 1 File Explorer:

1. Scan the left pane and click once on any minus signs you see displayed there. This collapses the display for that device or folder. Then click the plus sign next to Desktop.

2. Find the Computer line in the left pane. Click one time on the + sign next to Computer. All of the storage devices available on your computer are displayed.

3. If any of the storage devices have a – symbol next to them, click the – symbol one time to close them, all devices should have a + symbol next to them.

4. Click one time on the + sign next to Local Disk (C:) (or OS (C:)). All the folders stored in the root directory of your hard disk storage device are displayed underneath and slightly to the right of this line.

5. Click one time on the Program Files folder (not the + sign, but the actual folder or text Program Files); the directories containing programs on your computer are displayed in the right pane. Programs installed on your computer usually create a new folder within the Program Files folder and place all files required for that program in the new folder. It’s usually NOT a good idea to make any changes to the Program Files folder. (Note: a warning screen may appear when clicking on the Program Files folder telling you not to modify its contents. If so, click on the message Show the contents of this folder)

6. Click one time on the – sign next to Local Disk (C:) to collapse the display of the contents of your hard disk storage device.

7. The storage device referred to as M: is the server storage Haywood Community College allocates to you. If a + sign appears next to this storage device, click on it to expand the display for your server storage. This will not result in any change in the display if you have not created any folders in your server storage.

8. Click one time on your M: drive in the left pane. This will display the contents of your server storage in the right pane.

Section 2 Filenames, Extensions, and Formats

Now we will begin creating files on the file system. If you are at the step we left off with in the last section, you should have File Explorer open with M: selected in the left pane and the contents of your M: drive displayed in the right pane.

1. Select File ---> New ---> Text Document from the menu bar as in the following illustration:

[pic]

2. The new Text Document appears in the right pane with the words New Text Document highlighted which is prompting you to start typing a name for this document

3. Try to name the document My:NewDocument

4. You’ll find that you cannot type the : character. The Windows Operating System does not allow the following characters to be in the name of a document: \ / : * ? < > “ |

5. Name the document My New Text and press Enter.

6. Notice the type of the document in this case is Text; the type tells Windows what program can open the document

7. Double click icon next to the text My New Text

8. The application program Notepad should open the document. Windows looked at the type, Text, and initiated the appropriate program to edit that type of data file.

9. Type in the document “This is my new text document.” Then click File ---> Save. Close Notepad with the X button in the upper right-hand corner.

10. In the File Explorer window, select File ---> New ---> Microsoft Word Document from the menu bar as you did earlier with the Text document

11. Name the document My New Word

12. Double click icon next to the text My New Word

13. This time the operating system started Microsoft Word since the file type is Microsoft Word Document

14. Type in the document “This is my new text document.” The click File ---> Save. Close Word with the X button in the upper right-hand corner.

File Explorer usually hides the filename extension which indicates the type and format of the file. This ability to hide the filename extension is controlled by the Hide extensions for known file types option you checked back on page 1 of this exercise. If this option were unchecked and file extensions displayed, the two files we just created would actually be displayed as My New Text.txt and My New Word.docx. These files should appear on your computer as shown below without these extensions.

[pic]

15. In addition to the file type we now have a non-zero file-size and a date last modified listed in File Explorer. Notice how much larger the Word document is even though it contains the exact same text as the Notepad document. This is due to the fact that Word includes a great deal of formatting information about a text document whereas Notepad includes none.

File Management

Finally, we’ll create a folder structure and move files between the folders using the drag and drop feature.

1. Make sure M: is selected (highlighted) in the left pane. If not, click once in the left pane on the text for the M: storage device.

2. Now we’ll create a folder in the root directory of your server storage. This is done by right-clicking in any of the “white space” of the right pane of File Explorer to display a short cut menu. Then click New and finally Folder. Do NOT right-click on a file or folder name. This is another way to create new items. Previously you created new text documents by selecting the File ---> New option from the menu bar.

3. Name this folder New Directory and press Enter.

4. If the new folder does not appear immediately in the left pane, then a + sign should appear next to M:. Click once on the + sign to display the new folder in the directory structure.

5. Position the mouse to the My New Text document, click and hold down the mouse button, then begin moving the mouse pointer over to the New Directory folder in the left pane. When the mouse is pointing to the New Directory folder, you’ll see the folder name highlighted. With the folder name highlighted, release the mouse button. This causes the My New Text document to be moved to this folder. This process is referred to as “drag and drop”.

6. Double click on New Directory in the right pane and see that it now contains the My New Text document.

7. Click one time on M: in the left pane.

8. Using the same procedure as in step 5 above, drag the My New Word document to New Directory.

9. Click one time on New Directory in the left pane and see it now contains both documents.

10. Now create a subdirectory inside of New Directory by right-clicking in the “white space” of the right pane and selecting New ---> Folder (or by selecting File ---> New ---> Folder from the menu bar).

11. Name this sub-directory Text Documents.

12. Click on the + sign next to New Directory in the left pane to expand the display of this folder. The Text Documents folder you just created should now be shown as a subdirectory of New Directory.

13. Use the instructions from step 5 to drag the file My New Text from the right pane and drop it into the Text Documents directory in the left pane.

14. Use the instructions from step 10 to create another folder called Word Documents inside New Directory.

15. Drag the file My New Word from the right pane to the left and drop it into the Word Documents folder.

16. New Directory should now contain two subdirectories called Text Documents and Word Documents but no longer contain any files.

17. Finally, if you have a flash memory device, drag New Directory from the M: drive to your flash memory device (usually E:). This copies the entire contents of New Directory (including sub-directories) from your server storage to your flash drive. Since these are two different drive letters, File Explorer performs a copy instead of a move. This is an ideal means to copy documents modified on your server storage to your flash device or those changed at home from your flash device back to your server storage.

You can continue creating sub-directories in this manner, logically laying out the files on your storage devices. Storing your files in an orderly manner will facilitate retrieval of this data at a later time.

Finally, to complete this exercise, I want to view and verify your directory structure. After that you can remove the files and directories placed on your server storage or leave them for future reference. The results of this exercise can easily be removed by right-clicking on New Directory and selecting Delete from the shortcut menu.

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Any device or folder can be selected by clicking it.

The plus sign can be clicked to expand a device or folder to display the next level of the hierarchy

The minus sign can be clicked to collapse a device or folder to hide levels of the hierarchy

The left pane displays your computer’s hierarchy of storage devices and folders.

The right pane shows the files, folders, or devices found within the device or folder currently selected in the left pane.

File Explorer makes it easy to drill down through the levels of the directory hierarchy to locate a particular file or folder.

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