4th July 2008

Win XP Tutorial Part 4 - Windows Explorer, using windows explorer/my computer

Welcome to the 4th part of our Windows XP tutorial, in this section we will give you an introduction to Windows Explorer and how to open it, and look at a method for navigating through your file system.

Before you follow this tutorial you must read and agree to the terms of our disclaimer.

In part four:
Opening Windows Explorer. Navigate drives and folders. Continue to Part 5 Back to course menu.

If you have any trouble with any of the terms see our computer dictionary.

Opening Windows Explorer

An integral part of using your PC is file management, at some point you will want to make a new folder or delete a file. Windows Explorer has been around since Windows 95 and is a very handy tool for managing your files and folders.

Windows Explorer is basically the same environment as My Computer except it has a folders list shown by default (which can be turned on anyway in the My computer environment, making them exactly the same), so all of the tasks in this section can be achieved using either Windows Explorer or the My Computer enviroment.

To Open Windows Explorer
There are a few ways to open Windows Explorer, here are 4 different methods:

Method 1
Click on the START button, hover your mouse over the All Programs (or programs in classic view) and then hover over Accessories, finally click on Windows Explorer.

Method 2
hold down the START button and press the E key.

Method 3
click the START button, click run, type explorer into the box and press enter.

Method 4
open My Computer and click on the Folders button at the top of the My Computer environment.

Whichever method you choose to use it has the same results.

Navigating through your drives and folders

When you have opened Windows Explorer (or opened my computer and then clicked the folders button) you will see something similar to that shown in fig 1.1 below:

You can see Windows Explorer is split into two parts, the left hand side which is called the folders list (A in fig 1.1) and the right hand side (B in fig 1.1) which is where you will be managing your files and folders.

First let's concentrate on the folders list, you may have noticed the small plus sign (+) next to some of the icons, these indicate that the drive/folder has more folders inside it.

The file system of your PC is organised in a hierarchical way, below is an example:

The Disk or Device is the upper hierarchical level and is known as the root.

Notice how the folders are organised, this type of structure can facilitate a very organised PC !

In the following example the disk or device is Local Disk (C:).

In fig 1.3 above we have navigated to the pc course folder on Local Disk (C:).

First we clicked on the small arrow next to the My Computer icon
then clicking the arrow next to Local Disk (C:)
and finally left clicking on the pc courses folder in the left pane.

Now that we have navigated to it, if we wanted we could make some changes to our pc courses folder, which is exactly what we are going to do in the next part of our tutorial.

note: you can also navigate through your folders by double clicking a folder in the right hand window