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Contents:

File Management (Right Mouse Click) Send To  Cut Copy Create a shortcut Delete Rename Find Properties Creating Folders

Disk Management Formatting/Initializing disks& flash drives Checking Disk Space Making a Backup Disk Finding a File Using Zip disks Keyboard Shortcuts Other Windows Sources Help Additional Shortcuts Windows Sources

File Management (Right Mouse Click)
To perform tasks on files (move, cut, copy, etc.) there are severel methods this documentent focuses on placing the mouse cursor over the file icon or name and clicking the right mouse button.

Send To: To place a  copy of a file in a diffirent location, adesktop, USB Drive, My Documents, etc.: (a) click two times on top of the file icon with the right mouse button and the Right Mouse Shortcut Menu will appear.  From the menu:  (b) choose Send To then  choose where you want the copy sent: Desktop 3 1/2 Floppy (A) My Documents etc.

Right Mouse Button

Cut: To remove a file from the current location and place a copy on your clipboard.  You can go to a new location on your drives and paste the file.  The old copy is deleted.  (a) Click on top of the file icon with the right mouse button and the Right Mouse Shortcut Menu will appear.  From the menu:  (b) Choose "Cut"  (c) Go to the new location and click the right mouse button.  (d) Choose  Paste from the Right Mouse menu Short cut: Go to the new location and <Ctrl><v> to paste

Right Mouse Button Cut File                              Paste File

Copy: To place a copy on your clipboard, leaving the current file in place. You can go to a new location on your drives and paste the file.  The old copy is deleted. (a) Click on top of the file icon with the right mouse button and the Right Mouse Shortcut Menu will appear. From the menu:  (b) Choose "Copy", just below "Cut"  (c) Go to the new location and click the right mouse button.  (d) Choose  Paste from the Right Mouse menu Short cut: Go to the new location and <Ctrl><v> to paste

Right Mouse Button Cut File                              Paste File

Create Shortcut:  To be able to open a file from more then one location(s) but maintain only one copy of the file (a) click on top of the file icon with the right mouse button and the Right Mouse Shortcut Menu will appear. From the menu:  (b) choose "Create Shortcut" and a new icon with a small arrow at the bottom left will appear in the window (c) you can then copy the shortcut icon, see copy above, and go to the new location and click the right mouse button and choose  Paste Shortcut from the the Right Mouse menu Note: a shortcut, also called an alias, is a pointer to a file.  It is not the file and and can be renamed, deleted, or moved with out causing a problem

Right Mouse Shortcut   Shortcut icon

Rename: To change the name of a file  (a) click on top of the file icon with the right mouse button and the Right Mouse Shortcut Menu will appear.  From the menu:  (b) choose "Rename"  (c) the file name will be enclosed with a box and you can edit the name within the box  Note: You can also do this by clicking the file icon very slowly two times to edit the name Shortcut keys:  You can also do this by clicking the file icon very slowly two times the file name will be highlighted and can be edited.

Editing a file name

Properties: To find information about a file, the MS-DOS name, Type of file, Location, Size, Created (date), Modified (date), Accessed (date)  Attributes (read only, hidden, archive, system). (a) click on top of the file icon with the right mouse button and the Right Mouse Shortcut Menu will appear.  From the menu:  (b) choose "Properties"  (c) the Properties Window will appear with information on the file.  In our example  DOS Name: Missy.doc Type:  Microsoft Word Document  location: A:\ Size:  19.5KB (19,968 bytes)    Created:  Today...  Modified:  Today...  Accessed:  SToday...  Attributes:  only Archive checked.  (d) click the OK button when you are through.

Properties

Creating folders:  The best way to keep track of documents is by creating folders for major areas.  In My Documents you might create a folder for each quarter and in each folder create sub folders for each class you take that quarter.  The work for a specific class becomes much easier to find. To create a folder: Right click in the blank space of  a window and the Right Mouse Shortcut Menu will appear. Choose Folder A new folder will appear with the title highlighted.  You can type in a name for your new folder

TOP

(1) Formatting/Initializing a floppy, flash drives, hard drive.  NOTE: This erases all date.  Flashdrives and  most disks purchased are formatted but some older disks, Macintosh disks and corrupted disks require formatting.  You may also want to clean all the information from a drive.  To format a disk or flashdrive:    (a) Connect the flashdrive to the USB port or  place the disk in the floppy drive  (b) Double click My Computer with the left mouse button and My Computer  window will open.  (c) With the right mouse button, click once on the device to be formatted; flashdrive, 31/2 Floppy(A:), hard drive and the Right Mouse Shortcut Menu will open.   (d) Choose "Format" from the Right Mouse Shortcut Menu.  The Format Dialog Box will appear  (e) In the Format Dialog Box choose either:  -Quick (erase): erases just the directory of the disk  -Full: completely formats the disk and checks for bad sectors.  This is the choice in the sample.  (f) Type  in a label--your name perhaps? I typed my name, Jim Ross. (g) Click to "Display summary when finished" if you want a full report on your disk  (h) Click the Start button in the Format Dialog Box. A warning message will appear notifying you that data on the disk will be erased--just click OK. You will see the graphic display at the bottom of the dialog box fill as your disk is formatted. The Format Complete box will open when formatting is completed.   (i) Click the X on the top right corner of both open boxes--your disk is ready to use..

Right Mouse Shortcut Menu Format Dialog Box   Format Warning Format Complete

(a) Double click My Computer (b) Click once with the right mouse button on the drive you want to check space.  Our example is for 31/2 Floppy(A:).  The Right Mouse Shortcut Menu will appear.  From the menu:  (c) Choose "Properties"  (d) The Properties Window will appear with all the information  Type  3/12 Floppy Disk Used space 0 bytes  Free space 1.457,664 bytes  Capacity 1,457,664 bytes  NOTE: this is a newly formatted disk and it is empty (d) click the OK button when you are through.

Properties Floppy

Warning Disks do go bad!!!!! You should always make copys of important files.  One of the best ways to do this is by making a backup disk.  (a) Place your master disk, the disk to be copied, in the floppy drive A.  The steps below assume you have a data disk and a blank formatted disk for and are using a 1 floppy system.  (b) Double click My Computer (c) Click 31/2 Floppy (A:) with the right mouse button and the Right Mouse Shortcut Menu will open  (d) on the menu click Copy Disk..., a dialog box will open    (e) Select the floppy [A] on the left side and the floppy [A] on the right side   (f) click the Start key on the dialog box and your disk contents will be copied to memory.   (e) click the OK button on the dialog box and the copy process will be completed. You may be asked to format the disk--just follow the format procedure above. You may be instructed to swap disks in the drive as files are committed to memory and written to the new disk. (f) The Copy Disk completed box will be displayed  (f) Click the OK button then click the "Close" button in the Copy Disk Dialog Box NOTE 1: If you have a two drive system simply place the master copy in drive A and the backup disk in drive B  NOTE 2: The same procedure is followed for a Zip disk backup

Right Mouse Shortcut Menu Copy Disk Dialog Box Insert Target Disk Box Copy Disk Dialog Box

(a) Click Start. move the mouse icon to Search and across to For Files or Folders, see Start Find Menu------> The Search Window will open and you choose the most appropriate search from the choices on the left side.    (b) Either type all or part of the file name  in the box.  Use an "*" for truncation.  For example the search phrase "jake*" will retrieve any file with "jake" in it. "jakesbirthcert", "jake", "jakepicture" will all be retrieved.                                 Or A word or phrase in the appropriate box. NOTE: You do not need the complete file name, word or phrase.  You just need unique consecutive characters that appear in the file name or in the word or phrase you are searching for.   (c) Choose where you want to search by clicking the arrow beside the "Look in:" box and then clicking the location you want to search. I choose My Computer so that all drives would be searched. (d) Choose modification date, size and more advanced options to narrow your search  (e) Click the  Search button at the bottom right of dialog box, to perform the search.      (e) The results of the search will appear on the right side of the Search window.  You can double click to open, copy or drag and drop to copy.

Start Search Menu Search Window Search Dialog Search Results

The quickest source for help is the built in help in windows.  For access to general help (a) click the Start button  (b) choose Help and Support and then Type in a search phrase or question Pick a topic Ask for assistance Pick a task It may take a bit of creativity in wording your search phrase appropriately are in finding the answer to your problem but with practice and experience you will be able to get what you need.

Help and Support on start menu Help and Support Center Options

Web Sources:  There are a number of sources of help available on the Internet.  These are some of my favorites:

• http://www.microsoft.com/ Microsoft's web site.  Much information but you will have to try and figure out where it is located at their site.
• http://www.pcworld.com/ PC World magazines web site.  Offers lots of information but requires you traverse a lot of advertising to find what you want.
• http://www.hardwarecentral.com/ For reports on hardware particularly useful are the tutorials
• http://pcsupport.about.com/compute/pcsupport/ Links to sites with lots of info--also lots of ads
• http://pcguide.com/ For tutorials on upgrading your hardware check Physical Installation
• Google, You can also search  for help on Google or another search engine. Just type in a word or word phrase that describes your problem, For Mac help sites try your search at http://www.google.com/mac. Google also provides specific help for BSD Unix and Linux