Windows 7 - Working with Objects in Folder View

Working with folders and files in this view is simple. As explained previously, you just click an item in the left pane, and its contents appear in the right pane. Choose the view (Large Icons, Small Icons, and so on) for the right pane using the toolbar’s More options button, near the top-right corner. In Details view, you can sort the items by clicking the column headings. When they’re displayed, you can drag items to other destinations, such as a local hard disk, a floppy drive, or a networked drive. You can drag and drop files, run programs, open documents that have a program association, and use right-click menu options for various objects. For example, you can right-click files or folders and choose Send To, DVD RW Drive to copy items to a DVD disc. I use the
Send To, Mail Recipient option all the time, to send attachments to people via email. With a typical hard disk containing many files, when its folders are all listed in the left pane, some will be offscreen. Because the two panes have independent scrollbars, dragging items between distant folders is not a problem. Here’s the game plan:

1. Be sure the source and destination folders are open and visible in the left pane, even if you have to scroll the pane up and down. For example, a network drive should be expanded, with its folders showing.

2. Click the source folder in the left pane. Now its contents appear to the right.

3. Scroll the left pane up or down to expose the destination folder. (Click only the scrollbar, not a folder in the left pane; if you click a folder, it changes the displayed items on the right side.)

4. In the right pane, locate and drag the items over to the left, landing on the destination folder. The folder must be highlighted; otherwise, you’ve aimed wrong.

This technique suffices most of the time. Sometimes, it’s too much of a nuisance to align everything for dragging. In that case, use the cut/copy-and-paste technique. Remember, you can copy and paste across your home LAN as well as between your local drives.

Here are a few tips when selecting folders:

• You can select only one folder at a time in the left pane. If you want to select multiple folders, click the parent folder (such as the drive icon) in the left pane and select the folders in the right pane. Use the same techniques described earlier for making multiple selections.

• When you select a folder in the left pane, its name becomes highlighted. This is a reminder of which folder’s contents are showing in the right pane.

• You can jump quickly to a folder’s name by typing its first letter on the keyboard. If there’s more than one folder with the same first letter, each press of the key advances to the next choice.

• The fastest way to collapse all the branches of a given drive is to click that drive’s black triangle sign.

• You can quickly rearrange a drive’s folder structure in the left pane by dragging folders. You can’t drag disk drives, but you can create shortcuts for them (for example, a network drive) by dragging them to, say, the desktop.

• If a folder has subfolders, those appear in the right pane as folder icons. Clicking one of those opens it as though you had clicked that subfolder in the left pane.

• When dragging items to collapsed folders (ones with a plus sign), hovering the pointer over the folder for a second opens it.

• You can use the right-click-drag technique when dragging items if you want the option of clearly choosing Copy, Move, or Create Shortcut when you drop the item on the target.

• To create a new folder, in the left pane, click the folder under which you want to create the new folder. Right-click in the right pane and choose New, Folder.

• Delete a folder by right-clicking it and choosing Delete. You’re asked to confirm.

Source of Information : QUE Microsoft Windows in Depth (09-2009)