Finding Your Way Around Your Computer

You view all the drives, folders, and files that are part of your computer's storage system, as well as those on any computers you are connected to through a network, in Windows Explorer.

You can start Windows Explorer in several ways; for example, you can:

• Click the Windows Explorer taskbar button to start Windows Explorer and display the Libraries folder.
  Keyboard Shortcut Press the Windows Logo key+E to start Windows Explorer and display the Computer folder.
• Click any of the folder links in the right pane of the Start menu.
  • Click your user account name to display your personal folders.
  • Click Documents, Pictures, or Music to display the corresponding library.
  • Click Computer to display the hard disk drives and storage devices available to your computer.
• Right-click a folder in the left pane of the Start menu, and then click Open or Explore to display the folder contents in the Content pane and the path to the folder expanded in the Navigation pane.
• Double-click a folder on the desktop or in any window to display the folder contents in the Content pane.

You can navigate through the folder hierarchy on each drive, displaying the contents of folders within folders until you find the file you want. This navigation process is called browsing. However, you don't have to browse to find the programs, tools, and information you need in your daily work. You don't even have to know precisely where things are stored, because Windows 7 provides a system of links that you can use to navigate directly to its settings and tools, to programs, and to certain classes of information. You have already seen evidence of this link system with the icons on the desktop and the links on the Start menu, but links are also used in other key components of Windows 7, which we will explore here.

To explore your computer's storage system, you can use the Computer window as a convenient entry point. The devices represented in the Computer window are divided into groups. Internal hard disk drives (those physically installed in your computer) and external hard disk drives (those connected to your computer by a cable) are shown first, followed by internal removable storage drives (floppy disk, CD, and DVD drives) and external removable storage devices (such as USB flash drives), and then storage locations you access through a network connection. For each drive or device, the total storage space and available storage space are given, both as actual measurements and visually as a colored progress bar. The length of the progress bar indicates the portion of the total storage space that is in use. The default bar color is aqua; when less than 10 percent of the storage space on a disk or device remains available, the bar color changes to red. Tip The Computer window displays only groups that contain storage devices; if a group isn't active it isn't listed in the window.