Folders

Files reside in folders, which are sometimes called directories. Folders have names and properties too. And, like files, every folder has a residency: it is located in another folder called its parent. This gives the file system a hierarchical structure, like a family tree. That is where the term "parent" comes from. Another good analogy is a company organization chart, where every employee has a boss above him, except for the president at the top. The top of the folder hierarchy is called the root.

The file system will not permit two items in a folder to have the same name. You can verify this by creating two files in your working folder called file1 and file2. If you then try to change the name of file2 to file1, you will get an error message, and the change will not be completed. In the diagram above, there are two files named sales.xls, but they are in different folders.

Drives

Folders are housed in the computer drive. A computer can have many drives, drive A, drive C, drive D, drive E, etc. One way to access the drives is by double-clicking on the icon named "My Computer" on your Desktop. This icon is normally located in the upper-left corner of the Desktop. After you double-clicked on the My Computer icon, you will see that each drive is labeled by an icon that indicates the type of medium the drive uses. For example, the hard drive icon is a picture of a hard drive, and the optical drive icon is a picture of a CD-ROM. Clicking a drive's icon will take you to the root directory of that drive.

Paths

Since items in different folders can have the same name and folders can be nested within other folders, we need a way to instruct the operating system or an application exactly which object (that is, which file or folder) we are referring to. We can do this by specifying the complete path to the object, from the root directory. The first sales file in the diagram above can be reached via the path C:\Dave\1998\sales.xls. As you can see, a path contains a drive designator and a sequence of folder names separated by backslashes—and then, if we are referring to a file, the name of the file itself. The path to the root directory on this drive is written C:\ . You can get Windows to display the full path in the title bar of a folder window by going to the View menu and selecting Options. Then go to the View tab and select the check box labeled Display full paths in the title bar.

Shortcuts

A shortcut is an alternate way to reach a file. Shortcuts have names and live in folders just the way files do. But, a shortcut does not actually hold any data. Instead, it has a shortcut property that specifies the path to the file where the data can be found. This file is called the target of the shortcut. The target can be anywhere, even on a different drive. A shortcut only refers to its target; it is not a copy of the target. So, when you open a shortcut and edit what you find there, you are actually editing the target file.

In the folder hierarchy diagram above, Karen has established a shortcut to Dave's 1999 sales data. The target of this shortcut is C:\Dave\1999\sales.xls. Karen's shortcut is named 99sales. Thus, another way to reach Dave's file is via C:\Karen\99sales. If Karen deletes her shortcut, this does not delete the target; Dave's file is still there. Moving or renaming a shortcut also does not affect the target. But, if Dave moves or renames his sales file, Karen's shortcut may not be able to retrieve Dave's file.

Shortcuts can point to folders as well as to files. To create a shortcut, click with the right mouse button (right-click) the icon for the file or folder that is to be the target and select Create Shortcut from the shortcut menu that appears (coincidentally also known as a pop-up menu). Note that you cannot create a shortcut to another shortcut. If you try, what you get is a shortcut to the target of the first shortcut— same effect as copying the first shortcut. Try creating a shortcut of your own, and then look at its properties.