NWA-PCUG Newsletter Article, November 2010
Windows Explorer in Windows 7
By Lynn Page, Editor,
Crystal River Users Group, Florida October 2010 issue, CRUG newsletter

http://www.crug.com
lcpage46 (at) q.com (click to email author)

I have always felt that Windows Explorer is the most important application provided with Windows. It is a file management application included in the Microsoft Windows operating system from Windows 95 on. Understanding and managing the files on our computers an important task and I always create extremely detailed and intricate file and folder structures. Windows Explorer in Windows 7 makes that task even easier.

Windows Explorer not only provides a graphical user interface for accessing the file systems but is also the component of the operating system representing the user interface on the monitor. So expect to the Windows Shell, explorer.exe, running whenever viewing processes in Windows Task Manager.

In previous newsletters I have discussed Windows 7 Libraries so this article will only address a few features of Windows Explorer and their use. The toolbar displays the items to be discussed.

Here Windows Explorer shows the Preview Pane open. In Windows 7 the Preview Pane supports a wide range of formats including HTML, text files, XML files, images, videos, music, and WordPad files. If Microsoft Office is installed, previews for Office documents are also displayed. Similarly if Adobe Acrobat Reader is installed PDF files can be previewed. Clicking the button on the top right of the Windows Explorer toolbar shows or hides the Preview Pane. When open it displays files in the pane without having to open a them in a application. This helps in locating the right file if you can’t recognize it by name.

The other buttons on the toolbar are also useful if managing your files. Some are obvious but mousing over the button provides a tool tip.

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