Chapter 5. Organizing Files and Folders

Like all modern operating systems, Windows XP uses files and folders to organize your information, so that you aren’t overwhelmed by long file lists and can distinguish one set of information from another. A file is the basic unit of computer storage; it can be a program, a program’s configuration data, a log that the computer itself maintains, or a document that you create or receive. You organize files in containers called folders (or directories), which can hold additional folders (called subfolders) to form a treelike hierarchy. Folders in turn are stored on disks, or volumes—such as hard drives, floppy disks, CD/DVD drives, or Zip drives.

Windows creates a few system folders to store its own files and settings but otherwise doesn’t care how you structure your tree of folders and files. In this chapter, I explain how to use Windows Explorer to navigate and manage your stored information.