The New Explorer Bar

The Explorer window, shown in Figure 2-18, is currently divided into two panes. The left pane is called
the Explorer bar. The Explorer bar contains three drop-down bars, as described in the following list.
Tasks: Provides quick access to tasks you might want to perform at the moment. The
tasks available to you will change as you make different selections from the rightmost
pane. Clicking an option will start the selected task.
Other Places: Lists other places on your computer that you can jump to within Explorer.
When you click one of those options, the right pane changes to show the contents of that
new location. The Back button in the toolbar takes you back to wherever you just left.
Details: Shows detailed information about the current location, or the selected file or
folder in the right pane.
You can open or close the Tasks, Other Places, or Details portion of the bar by clicking the small button
to the right of the title.
A couple of good things to know about the Explorer bar, right off the bat. . . . First, if you resize the
Explorer window, the Explorer bar automatically disappears (which is helpful if you get to a point when
leaving it open would prevent the contents of the right pane from being displayed). Second, the Explorer
bar is optional and may not be visible at all if someone else has disabled it. If you can’t see the Explorer
bar, no matter how large you make the window, you can turn it back on by following these steps:
1. Choose Tools › Folder Options from the Explorer menu bar.
2. On the General tab, choose Show Common Tasks in Folders.
3. Click the OK button to close the Folder Options dialog box.
The rightmost pane displays the contents of whatever it is you’re exploring at the moment. In Figure 2-
18, for example, I can see that my My Documents folder currently contains several additional folders,
including My Music and My Pictures. There also are a couple of documents in there, named Resume
and My First WordPad Document. Note that the folders all have icons that look like manila file folders.
Documents will have other icons. As you know, you can open any icon just by clicking or double-clicking
the icon. If you open a folder icon, you’ll see the contents of that folder within Explorer. The Explorer title
bar will then display the name of the currently open folder. To return to My Documents, click the Back
button on the Explorer toolbar.
If you open a document icon, the document will open in whatever program is associated with the type of
document you opened. For example, opening the My First WordPad Document icon in the figure opens
that document in Microsoft Word (if it’s installed) or the Windows WordPad program (if Microsoft Word
isn’t available). The program’s window covers (or overlaps) the Explorer window. From within the open
program, you can then edit, print, or do whatever else the program enables you to do. After you have
finished working with the document, you can close the program (by clicking its Close button).