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

Upon completing this set of exercises, 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

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 arrows pointing to the lower right as shown in the figure above. This collapses the display for that device or folder. When finished you should be left with just a few items in the left pane including Favorites, Libraries, and Computer.

2. In the left pane, click one time on the arrow pointing to the right (the ►sign) next to the Computer icon. A list of items appears displaying all the storage devices on your computer.

3. Click one time on the ► sign next to Local Disk (C:). All the folders stored in the root directory of your hard disk storage device are displayed underneath and slightly to the right of the Local Disk (C:) icon.

4. Click one time on the Program Files folder (not the ► sign, but the actual folder or text Program Files). The folders 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)

5. Click once on the arrow pointing to the lower right next to Local Disk (C:) in the left pane. This collapses the display of folders stored in the root directory of your hard disk storage device.

6. Click the arrow pointing to the right (►) next to Libraries to expand the display of items set up as libraries. A Library is a central place to view and organize specifically chosen folders stored anywhere your computer can access. This can include your hard disk and removable drives.

7. Click the arrow pointing to the right (►) next to Documents to display folders contained within this library. Unless the properties for this library have been modified previously, the items listed under Documents should be My Documents and Public Documents.

8. Click one time on your server storage (the 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 in 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 its contents 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. You’ll find that you cannot type the : character. The Windows Operating System does not allow the characters \ / : * ? < > “ | in a document name.

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

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

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

7. 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.

8. Type the following words in the document “This is my new text document.” Then click File ---> Save.

9. Close Notepad by clicking 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 the 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 the following words in the document “This is my new text document.”

15. Locate the diskette icon immediately above the File tab in the upper left corner. Move the mouse over the diskette icon, wait a moment, and a tip should appear with the word “Save”. Click the diskette icon to save the Word document.

16. Close Microsoft Word by clicking 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]

17. 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.

Section 3: 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 M:.

2. Now we’ll create a folder inside the M drive. This can be accomplished by right-clicking in any of the “white space” of the right pane of File Explorer. Do NOT right-click on a file or folder name. The right-click displays a shortcut menu where you can place the mouse over New and finally select Folder. This is just another way to create new items such as text documents or folders. Previously you did this by selecting the File ---> New option from the menu bar.

3. Name this folder New Folder 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 folder structure of the left pane.

5. Position the mouse to the My New Text document, click and hold down the mouse button, and then begin moving the mouse pointer over to the New Folder folder in the left pane. When the mouse is pointing to the New Folder 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 Folder 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 Folder.

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

10. Now create a subfolder inside of New Folder 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 subfolder Text Documents.

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

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 folder in the left pane.

14. Now use the instructions from step 10 to create another folder inside New Folder. Name this folder Word Documents.

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

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

17. Finally, if you have a flash memory device, drag New Folder from the M: drive to your flash memory device (usually E:). This copies the entire contents of New Folder (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-folders 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 Folder and selecting Delete from the shortcut menu.

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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.

The arrow pointing to the lower right can be used to collapse a device or folder to hide levels of the hierarchy

Any device or folder can be selected by clicking it.

The right pointing arrow can be used to expand a device or folder to display the next level of the hierarchy

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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