Windows XP is packed with improved file management features. Many of them will appeal chiefly to beginners and inexperienced users, but there's plenty lurking in XP to gratify all types of computer users.

Morphable Task Panes

The most palpable changes to file management are the new Task Panes, which appear on the left of every folder window. The contents of the pane alter depending on the type of folder you have opened or the files you have selected.

When you select one or more items, you'll see the Task Pane options change. For single files, the options are: rename, move, copy, publish to the Web, e-mail, print and delete. For folders, the print option isn't available but you gain a share option, which lets you share the folder with other users on your computer or network.

Quick tasks

For almost all tasks involving files, Windows offers a choice of techniques for achieving your aim. In XP, the Task Panes provide additional ways of performing these tasks.

Quick task: Move files or folders

To move items using the Task Panes:

  1. Select the files and folders you wish to move and click the Move task. A Move Items dialog appears.

  2. Navigate through the folders until you find the destination folder, then click the Move button.

To move the items to a new folder:

  1. Navigate to the folder within which you wish to place the new folder.

  2. Click Make New Folder. 

  3. Type in a name for the folder and press Enter.

  4. Click Move.

An alternative method to move files: If the destination is listed in the Other Places section of the Task Pane, simply drag-and-drop the files onto the appropriate Other Places link.

Quick task: Copy files or folders

To copy items:

  1. Select the files and folders you wish to copy.

  2. Click the Copy task.

  3. In the Copy Items dialog, navigate through the folders until you find the destination folder (or use Make New Folder to create a new destination), and click Copy.

Alternatively, if the destination is listed in Other Places, press and hold Ctrl while you drag and drop the files onto the appropriate other places link. When you release the mouse button, a pop-up menu will ask whether you wish to Copy the files or Cancel the action.

Quick task: Rename files or folders

To rename an item:

  1. Click the file or folder you wish to rename and click the Rename task. The item's name will be highlighted, ready for editing.

  2. Type in the new name and press Enter.

geekgirl.tip: Rename multiple files

In Windows XP, it's possible to rename multiple files, something you couldn't do in earlier versions of Windows (but was a snap to do in that old fossil, DOS!). Here's how:

  1. Select the files you wish to rename.

  2. Right-click any of the selected files and choose Rename from the pop-up menu (or, alternatively, press the F2 key). You'll note that the remaining selected files are still selected in grey.

  3. Type the new name for the selected file and press Enter. All the selected files are given the same name followed by a number in parentheses. For example, if you select three files and rename the first file Revised Agenda.doc, the other two files will be renamed Revised Agenda (1).doc and Revised Agenda (2).doc.

Quick task: Publish files to the Web

To publish files to the Web:

  1. Make sure you have an active Internet connection, then select the items you wish to upload to the Web.

  2. Click the Publish to the Web task.

  3. The Web Publishing Wizard will appear. Step-by-step, it lets you confirm which files you wish to publish, select a Web host for your files (if you don't have one already, you will be shown a list to choose from), and then upload your files to your own site. Follow the instructions in the wizard to publish your files.

Note: If you want to publish an entire folder's contents, Publish to the Web will copy all the files within that folder, but not files contained within sub-folders of that folder.

Quick task: E-mail files

To send files via e-mail:

  1. Select the items you wish to e-mail and click the E-mail task.

  2. If any of the items you have selected are graphics files, Windows XP will offer to resize them. This is important because many Internet Service Providers put a limit on the size of e-mail attachments (frequently as low as 2M). If you click the Show More Options link in the Send Pictures by E-mail dialog, you'll be able to select between sizes (640 x 480, 800 x 600 or 1024 x 768). When you've made your selections, click OK and a new e-mail message window will open with the selected files included as attachments and the file names used as the Subject for the e-mail.

  3. Fill in the recipient details, change the subject if you wish, add your own message, and click Send.

Note: If you choose to e-mail an entire folder's contents, only the files within the folder will be attached; files within sub-folders will be ignored.

XP will automatically resize files you send by e-mail.

Sending e-mail attachments in XP is drop-dead easy. It even resizes graphics files before sending them.

Quick task: Delete files or folders

Deleting files or folders couldn't be simpler:

  1. Click the items you wish to delete.

  2. Click the Delete task.

Quick task: Share files or folders

You can share files and folders with others who use your computer or with other computers on a network. To share a file or folder with other users of your computer, simply drag the item to Shared Documents in Other Places.

If your computer is networked, to share a folder:

  1. Select the folder.

  2. Click the Share task.

  3. Choose the appropriate options in the Network Sharing and Security section of the Properties dialog.

This same Properties dialog, by the way, lets you do the reverse – that is, ensure that no other users can view the contents of a folder. All you do is choose the Make This Folder Private option in the Local Sharing and Security section of the Properties dialog box.

Folder templates

The Task Panes add intelligence to My Documents and standard folders. Even more accommodating is the way Windows XP provides specialised folders for multimedia content, with each special folder type offering its own selection of tasks.

You'll find links to the My Pictures and My Music folders, for storing graphics and sound files respectively, on the newly revamped Start menu. You can also create a My Videos folder for animations and movies. Each of these folders has its own Task Pane, with content-specific options such as View As A Slideshow for pictures, and Copy To Audio CD for music. The My Pictures folder also has an additional Filmstrip view for displaying the contents of the folder.

The specialised Task Panes are not limited to the three multimedia folders mentioned above. If you create a new folder, the first item you place in that folder – graphics file, audio file, video or non-multimedia file – will determine the folder's type and the Task Pane type: Pictures, Music, Video and standard respectively.

Choose a folder template to gain access to additional file management features.

Choosing a folder template boosts the IQ of your multimedia folders.

You can also nominate a folder template for any new folder you create. There are seven templates to choose from: Documents (for files of any type); Pictures (for large numbers of graphics files); Photo Albums (for limited numbers of graphics files); Music (for audio files and playlists); Music Artists (for audio files by a single composer or artist); Music Albums (for tracks from one album); and Videos. To select a template for a folder:

  1. Right-click the folder's icon or, if you have the folder already open, in a blank space within the folder, and choose Properties from the pop-up menu.

  2. Click the Customize tab.

  3. Select the appropriate template from the Use This Folder Type As A Template drop-down list and click OK.

By choosing a folder template appropriate to the folder's content, you gain a whole new set of organisational tools. The Details view (click the Views button on the toolbar of any folder and select Details) of Music Artist and Music Album folders, for example, now displays information such as album title, track number, track length, and so on. You can quickly resort the file display by clicking any of the column headers in details view.

Similarly, you can right-click within the folder, choose Arrange Icons By from the menu and then sort your audio files by artist, album, or any other identifying characteristic. There's also a Group option which lets you group files by artist, album, author, et cetera.

You'll find XP understands a lot more about your media files than previous versions of Windows. Right-click a file and choose Properties, then click Summary to see extensive information about the file.

Other enhancements

Some of the more interesting new features in XP are subtler than the Task Panes. For example, you can now right-click a file and choose Send To <CD writer> to burn a file to CD.

As with Windows Me, Zip compression is built into Windows XP. Right-click a file or folder and select Send To Compressed Folder to compress files and place them in Zip-compatible folders, identifiable by a zippered folder icon.

Another new feature is the auto-recognition of disk contents. Insert a CD, DVD, floppy, Zip or Jaz disk and a dialog pops up proffering a menu of choices appropriate to the content. For a blank CD, XP will offer to burn files directly to the CD; for a CD containing photos, XP offers to run the CD as a slideshow, print the photos, copy the photos to a folder, and so on.

geekgirl.technote: Where's Windows Explorer?

You'll find Windows Explorer has been relegated to a sub-sub-sub-menu of the Start menu. That's because the easiest way to access Windows Explorer is to open any folder and click the Folders icon on the toolbar to display the folder tree instead of a Task Pane. By default, Windows Explorer opens to display the My Documents folder, so entering via the My Documents icon makes sense.

If you prefer to use Windows Explorer directly but don't want it opening to the My Documents folder:

  1. Click Start -> All Programs -> Accessories, right-click Windows Explorer and choose Properties.

  2. Click the Shortcut tab and, in the Target box where you'll see \%SystemRoot%\explorer.exe add the following, preceded by a space:

/n, /e, /select, C:\

and click OK. This will open explorer on the root folder of drive C:. Replace C:\ with whichever folder you want as the default.

  1. Press and hold Ctrl while you drag and drop Windows Explorer from the All Programs menu to create a copy of the shortcut on your Desktop or the Quick Launch bar.

© 2005 Rose Vines  

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