Windows Tips: Locate Files on a Multigigabyte Drive
Find files on a big hard drive, organize your Start menu, open apps fast.
From the July 2001 issue of PC World magazine
PC users are so thoroughly inundated with data that Bill Gates's
promise of "information at your fingertips" can seem more like Nikita
Khrushchev's threat, "We will bury you." Fortunately, Windows can help you
manage the deluge with tools that make it easy to find and open the files you
need. Some of the operating system's tools are obvious, but some aren't. Here
are my favorites.
Get organized: Arrange your files and folders in a
logical, hierarchical system. It's the best way to ensure that you'll be able
to find one file among the hundreds--or thousands--on your hard drive. Limit
the number of files in each folder, and group subfolders in a way that's easy
for you to remember. For example, you can store documents in folders for
specific projects, by date, or by topic. Once you've created your filing
system, stick to it.
Be document-centric: If you work with files of
multiple types--such as those in Microsoft Excel (.xls) and Word (.doc)--that
you store in one folder, don't waste time opening each by launching its
application from the Start menu. Instead, open a folder window (via Windows
Explorer, My Computer, or some other method) and navigate to the folder that
holds the files you want. Double-click the files to launch the applications and
open the documents in one step.
If the application is already running, click and drag the document
you want to open (orCtrl-click to select more than one) from the
folder window to the application's title bar (see FIGURE
1). If the application is minimized or hidden by other programs,
drag the files to the application's icon on the taskbar, and when the
application window comes to the front, drop the files on the app's title
bar.
Type your way there: When presented with a long list
of files in Windows Explorer, a Windows common file dialog, or a Find or Search
Results window, you can select the first name in the list that begins with a
particular character by typing that character on your keyboard. If the list
contains multiple files beginning with the same letter, type the first several
characters of the file name, or even entire words. Windows will select the
first item that begins with the characters you type. If you pause too long
between characters, however, Windows will think you're starting over
again.
Learn from history, part 1: For quick access to a
document that was opened recently, select Start, Documents. Chances are you'll find
the document listed there and can then open it in its associated application
with a single click. Unfortunately, if you work with many documents or download
many files from the Web, you may not find the document you want. If you use
Office 2000 or applications designed for Windows 2000 or Me, you can save time
by using the icons in the left pane of the new File, Open and File, Save As
dialog boxes to navigate to the desired file.
You can also click the down arrow
on the right side of the 'File name' box (or click the box and press F4orAlt- Down Arrow) to see a list of the last ten
files you accessed (see FIGURE
2). To select the type of file to list, choose an option from the
'Files of type' drop-down list at the bottom of the dialog box. Note: In Office 2000 apps, this works only in the Save
As dialog box.
Learn from history, part 2: If you don't see the file
you want in the Start, Documents menu or in the 'File name' drop-down list in
Office 2000, Windows 2000, or Windows Me, click the History icon in the left panel of the Open
or Save As dialog boxes in Office 2000 or in applications designed for Windows
2000 or Windows Me. This step displays a more thorough list of recently opened
documents and folders. The list is filtered to show documents typically used by
the current application. To see other file types, choose an option from the
'Files of type' drop-down list at the bottom of the dialog box.
Navigate faster with autocomplete: The Open and Save
As dialog boxes in Office 2000 and in Windows 2000 and Windows Me applications
use the autocomplete feature when you type a folder path (such as C:\My
Documents) and file name (such as resume.doc) in the 'File name' box shown in
Figure 2. Just start typing any path name (it doesn't have to lead to a folder
in the currently displayed window), and the autocomplete feature will find the
first folder name in your system that matches the characters you type.
Annoyingly, Office and non-Office applications implement the
feature differently. In non-Office applications, enter the first character or
characters of the folder path in the 'File name' box and press Down Arrow one or more times to select the
correct folder. Then enter a backslash (\) to begin typing the next part of the path,
the last part of which will be the actual file name.
In Office apps, press Right Arrow when the proper folder appears
in the 'File name' box; the slash is added for you. In any app, continue typing
the next portion of the path. Repeat this process until the entire folder path
and file name appear in the 'File name' box. Then press Enter once for non-Office applications or
twice for Office apps to open or save the file.
Start off right: If you prefer to launch applications
first and then open files, set your apps to display the folders you want each
time you open or save a file. That way you won't have to navigate manually
through your drives and folders each time you see the familiar Open and Save As
dialog boxes. Locate the icon that launches the program whose default location
you want to change: In Win 95, that usually means right-clicking Start, choosing Open, and navigating to the folder
containing the appropriate shortcut icon, such as Word's blue 'W'. Right-click
the icon and choose Properties.
In more recent versions of Windows, you don't need to open the
folder containing the icon. Just right-click the icon on the Start menu and
choose Properties. Make sure the Shortcut tab is selected. Click the Start in box and type the path to the folder
containing the documents you typically open with the app (see FIGURE
3). Click OK. The next time you launch the program and
choose File, Open or File, Save As, the dialog box should default there. If you
select another location during the session, it will likely appear when you
reopen the dialog box. But it will revert to the path you typed in the 'Start
in' box when you next open the app.
Some applications require a different approach. As usual,
Microsoft Office applications don't use the same technique that other Windows
applications do. To set the default folder location in Word or Excel, launch
the program and choose Tools, Options. In Word, click the File Locations tab. Double-click the Documents line, navigate to the folder of
your choice, and click OK. Double-click other lines and do the same
thing to set the default folders for clip art, templates, and so on. Then click OK. In Excel, click the General tab in the Options dialog box,
select the Default file location box, and type the path
you want. Then click OK twice.
Use strategic shortcuts: If you frequently move files
between the same few folders, you can save time by putting shortcuts within
each folder that lead to the other folders. In Explorer, select one or more of
your favorite folders, right-click and drag them to another commonly used
folder (or into the file list of an Open or Save As dialog box with the desired
folder displayed), and choose Create Shortcut(s) Here. To make your
shortcuts appear together at the top of an alphabetized list, rename them and
add a grave accent (`) or other uncommon character to the beginning
of each (as shown in Figure
2). The next time you open or save a file, you can jump from one
folder to the other by double-clicking the shortcut in the file list of the
dialog box.
This ploy may not always work in older versions of Windows,
however. For example, dialog boxes opened with Windows 9 x's Browse button (found in the Run and Change Icon dialog
boxes) interpret folder shortcuts as files to be opened rather than as paths to
their target location. That's been fixed in Windows 2000 but (surprisingly) not
in Windows Me.
In addition, if you double-click a folder shortcut in Windows'
common Save As dialog boxes, it properly takes you to that folder's
location--but for some unknown reason it changes the name of the file you're
saving (in the 'File name' box) to the name of the shortcut. Consequently, if
you use this dialog box in Internet Explorer when downloading files, you could
end up having a file saved from the Web with a name other than its original,
making that file difficult to locate after downloading. Fortunately, this
glitch has been fixed in Windows 2000 and Windows Me.
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