Tip To create a shortcut to Shared Documents on your desktop, open My Computer as
described earlier. Then drag the Shared Documents icon out to the desktop and
drop it there. More on creating shortcuts in Chapter 4.
The main thing to keep in mind is that shared items don’t appear within your My Documents folder —
even though other people are willing to share. You must specifically go to the Shared Documents folder
to find those shared items.
If you want to share items from your My Documents folder, or any of its subfolders, you must move or
copy those items from their current location to the Shared Documents folder (or one of its
subdocuments). Keep in mind that once you move an item to Shared Documents, it is no longer
available via My Documents. If someone else deletes that shared item, it’s gone for good. If someone
else changes the item, you’re stuck with those changes.
On the other hand, if you copy items to Shared Documents, you retain your own copy in your My
Documents folder. So there’s no loss if someone else deletes it. Likewise, if someone changes the
Shared Documents item, those changes won’t be reflected in the copy that’s in your My Documents
folder. If you prefer the changed copy, and want that one in your My Documents folder, you must copy
the changed version from Shared Documents to My Documents.
Chapter 12 discusses moving and copying files and folders in detail. If you’re just looking to move
something from My Documents to Shared Documents, however, the procedure is simple enough:
1. Open My Documents.
2. Drag the item you want to move from the right pane of the Explorer window to the Shared
Documents option under Other Places in the Explorer bar, and drop it there.

Or, if you see a My Documents icon on your desktop, just open that icon.
Figure 2-33: Various places from which you can open your My Documents folder
Tip To add a My Documents icon to your desktop, right-click the desktop and choose
Properties. Click the Desktop tab, and then click on the Customize Desktop button.
Under Desktop Icons, choose My Documents. Then click each open dialog box’s
OK button.
Windows Explorer opens and displays the contents of your My Documents folder. That folder might
contain still more folders, such as My Music and My Pictures. And it might contain some documents,
such as the Things to Do document in Figure 2-34.
Figure 2-34: Contents of a sample My Documents folder
Keep in mind that the My Documents folder is yours, and yours alone. Other people who use this same
computer and who log on with their own user names will have their own My Documents folders. Any
files that users of this computer can share will be in the Shared Documents folder.


Introducing Shared Documents
As the name implies, the Shared Documents folder contains files and folders that all users of this
computer can access. You can open Shared Documents by choosing that option under Other Places in
the Explorer bar. You also can find its icon in My Computer. As always, you’ll see the folders and files
contained within the Shared Documents folder. And you can open anything in that file or folder by
clicking or double-clicking it.

The reason for the change has to do with the improved support for multiple users that XP provides.
Each user has her own My Documents folder, which prevents multiple users from overcrowding a single
My Documents folders. Each user also has his own desktop, and Start menu settings, Favorites, and so
forth, and these too are stored within the user’s folder.
These changes are pretty transparent when you’re working in Windows. Normally there’s really no need
for you to ever dig around in any subfolders within Documents and Settings. You can get to your own
My Documents folder from many places on the desktop and within Explorer. There’s really no need to
“drill down” to the folder via the Documents and Settings folder.
Note If you attempt to view the contents of such a drive while it’s empty, you’ll
just see a little message asking you to put a disk into the drive. When you
insert the disk, the message disappears and Explorer displays the
contents of the disk.
You rarely need to use My Computer to use a CD-ROM or DVD disk. Most of these have an autostart
capability. Just insert the disk into its drive and wait a few seconds for something to appear on-screen. If
nothing happens, you can open the icon for the drive in My Computer. Be aware, however, that doing so
might automatically start some program on the CD, in which case you won’t be taken to the traditional
view of the drive’s contents.
If you do get to a traditional view of the drive’s contents, and you’re looking to install a program that’s on
that CD, you can probably just click (or double-click) the icon for the file named SETUP.EXE on that
disk. Refer to Chapter 16 for detailed information in installing new programs.
Introducing My Documents
Even though most of the folders on your hard disk contain still more folders and files that you probably
don’t want to mess with, there is one folder on your hard disk that’s especially reserved for you and your
personal files. Its name is My Documents, and you can quickly get to it using any of the following
methods,
Click the Start button and choose My Documents.
Or, if you’re already in an Explorer window, choose My Documents from Other Places in the
Explorer bar at the left side of that window.

Figure 2-32: Viewing the contents of the C: drive on one of my computers
Documents and Settings: Contains folders and files that are unique to you, the current
user of this computer. Your My Documents folder is contained within this folder. But there
are faster and easier ways to get to that folder as opposed to “drilling down” from this level.
Program Files: Any programs that you install on your computer will most likely put their
files in a subfolder within this Program Files folder. Unless you really know what you’re
doing, you’d be wise to stay out of this folder and let Windows manage it for you behind the
scenes. You can start any program that’s installed on your computer from the Start menu, or
the All Programs option available on that menu.
WINDOWS: The files that make up your Windows operating system are stored within this
folder. This is another folder you’ll want to stay out of, unless you’re an expert who has
some reason to be working directly with Windows files.
To return to the My Computer view of things, click the Back button on Explorer’s toolbar.
Your hard disk is nonremovable, in the sense that you can’t take it out of its drive. So you can always
open that icon to view the hard drive’s contents. Obviously, you can insert and remove disks from drives
that support removable disks, such as your floppy (A:) and CD-ROM or DVD (D:) drive. To view the
contents of such a disk, insert the disk into its drive. Then open the drive’s icon in My Computer.
Explorer will display the contents of that drive as file and folder icons as well.
What Happened to My Documents?
If you’re an experienced Windows user, you might wonder why the traditional My Documents folder isn’t
visible when you first view the contents of your C: drive. The My Documents folder now exists as a
subfolder within Documents and Settings. If you open that folder, you’ll see a folder for each user who
has an account on this computer, as well as a few other folders. If you open the folder that bears your
user name, you’ll see your My Documents folder within that folder.

Good Places to Know
So far, this discussion about using Windows Explorer has pretty much focused on the hard disk, drive
C:. There are no doubt other disk drives. In this section, you’ll learn how to access those drives using
My Computer. You also will learn about some key folders on your hard disk, including My Documents
and Shared Documents.
Introducing My Computer
Contrary to what the heading implies, I’m not going to introduce you to my personal computer. My
Computer, in this context, refers to the view of the available disk drives offered by the Windows My
Computer option on a computer. I used that folder as an example quite often in the preceding section.
However, I didn’t mention that you can quickly view the contents of that folder in three different ways:
Click the Start button and choose My Computer.
Or, if you see a My Computer icon on your Windows desktop, open it (by clicking or doubleclicking
it).
Tip To add a My Computer icon to your desktop, right-click the desktop and choose
Properties. Click the Desktop tab, and then click the Customize Desktop button.
Under Desktop Icons, choose My Computer. Then click each open dialog box’s OK
button.
Or, if you’re already in Windows Explorer, click My Computer under Other Places in the
Explorer bar.
Figure 2-30 shows the locations of the various options for launching My Computer. It doesn’t matter
which one you use — just choose whichever is most convenient at the moment.
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Figure 2-30: Three ways to get to the My Computer view of your computer’s disk drives
Tip Yet a fourth way to quickly view the contents of My Computer is to click its name in
the Folders list of Explorer.
Explorer displays an icon for each drive in your computer. Exactly what you see when My Computer
opens depends on the drives that your system has. Just about every computer has a local hard drive
named C:, as well a floppy drive named A: and a CD-ROM or DVD drive named D:, as in the example
shown in Figure 2-31.
Figure 2-31: Sample contents of a My Computer view.
You may notice some folder icons in My Computer as well, particularly one named Shared Documents.
That item isn’t really a disk drive — it’s a virtual disk drive that is discussed a bit later in this chapter. For
now, let’s focus on the actual drives.
To view the contents of a drive, click (or double-click) its icon. The contents of the drive will most likely
display as folder and file icons. Folders are just groups of files that somehow go together. Folders are
always represented by manila file folder icons. The icon for a file will vary with the type of information
the file contains, as well as the specific view you’re using in Explorer at the moment, as discussed later
in this chapter.
If you open the icon for the C: drive, for example, you’ll probably see at least three folders named
Documents and Settings, Programs Files, and WINDOWS as in Figure 2-32. (If instead you see a
message saying that the files are hidden, choose Show the Contents of This Drive under System Tasks
to display the contents of the drive.) I don’t recommend that you mess with the contents of any of these
folders. The only “safe” place for a beginner to work with files on the hard disk is in the folder named My
Documents, discussed in a moment. Just for your basic knowledge, however, here’s what’s stored in
those folders:
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Search system folders: If selected, searches “system folders” outside of My
Documents, including the folders where Windows XP stores its own files.
o Search hidden files and folders: If selected, files and folders that are normally
hidden from view are included in the search. Any file or folder can be hidden or
unhidden by right-clicking its icon, choosing Properties, and then selecting or
clearing the Hidden option on the General tab.
Case sensitive: If selected, only files that match the exact upper/lowercase letters
in whatever word or phrase you’re searching for are included in the results of the
search.
Search tape backup: If you use a tape backup device to make backups of your
files, choosing this option enables you to search the tape backups.
In most cases, it won’t be necessary to provide anything other than part of the file name, or perhaps
something about the contents of the file. So don’t let all the searching options throw you for a loop. As
an example, suppose that after clicking the Start button and choosing Search, I choose Pictures, Music,
or Video from the Search Explorer bar. Then I choose Music and Sound, and enter Hendrix as all or
part of the file name, as in Figure 2-28.
Figure 2-28: About to search for Music and Sound files containing Hendrix
After I click the Search button and wait for a few seconds, the right pane shows a bunch of files. Even
though the name Hendrix doesn’t appear in each file’s specific file name, Search was clever enough to
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include files that have Hendrix in the artist’s name, as in Figure 2-29. (There I’m in Details view and
have chosen to include Artist in that view via Choose Details, as described earlier.)
Figure 2-29: The results of a search for music and sound files that have Hendrix in the file name include files
that have Hendrix in the artist’s name.
The Search bar remains open after the search is complete. Therefore, if you don’t find what you’re
looking for on the first search (or end up with too many items), you can choose an option under No,
Refine this Search, and then take another shot at it. When you’re happy with the results of the search,
choose Yes, Finished Searching to bring back the normal Explorer bar.
Keep in mind that even though the title of the Explorer window reads Search Results when the search is
complete, you are still in Windows Explorer. And hence, you use all the techniques described earlier in
this chapter to view and arrange the icons to your liking. Likewise, you can open any icon by clicking, or
double-clicking it.
Tip In some cases, you might want to see the contents of the entire folder in which a
found file is located. To do that, right-click any icon in the right pane and choose
Open Containing Folder.

The Status bar

The optional Status bar in Explorer provides brief information about whatever you’re viewing in Explorer
at the moment. It also offers the standard sizing pad, which you can drag to resize the window. You can
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see an example along the bottom of the Explorer window shown in Figure 2-26. Choose View › Status
Bar from the Explorer menu bar to hide or display the Status bar.
Searching for Lost Files
It’s not unusual, especially among beginners, to lose files on a hard disk. You might download a file
from the Internet or create and save some document without paying much attention to where you put it
or what you named it. Or, you may be digging around for some document you created ages ago, and
have long since lost track of its name and/or location. The Explorer Search Companion will help you find
it.
Cross-
Reference
Newbies take note. Chapter 3 teaches you all about creating and saving
documents. Chapter 6 explains how to download files from the Internet.
To open the Search Companion:
If you’re already in Windows Explorer, just click the Search button in the Standard Buttons
toolbar.
Or, choose View › Explorer Bar › Search.
Or, press Ctrl+E.
Or, if you’re not in Windows Explorer, click the Start button and choose Search.
The first time the Search Companion opens, you’ll see a prompt asking whether you want to search
with, or without, an animated screen character. This is a one-time question, so you might not see it at
all. Frankly, it makes little difference which you choose, unless you happen to be fond of animated dogs.
You can change your mind at any time by choosing Change Preferences within the Search bar.
The first set of options to appear in the Search Companion bar, shown in Figure 2-27, are as follows:
Pictures, music, or video: This option limits the results of the search to those types of files.
Documents: This option limits the search to document files that go with specific programs,
such as Word documents, Excel documents, and so forth.
All files and folders: This option returns search results with all types of files.
Computers or people: This option enables you to search for computers in a local network,
people in your address book, or the Internet.
Information in Help and Support Center: This option plays the same role as the Search
option in Windows Help.
Figure 2-27: The Search Companion, with the animated character
The options that appear next depend on what you select. To see the full range of searching options, you
need to click Use Advanced Search Options. You can fill in any information you do know about the file.
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If you don’t know a specific piece of information about a file (such as its size), leave that option blank.
Staying with the example of searching for lost files or folders, you’ll likely be given the following options:
All or part of filename: If you know anything about the name of the file, you can enter that
here. For music, videos, and other media files, you can even add information that’s not
specifically in the file name, but elsewhere in the file’s properties. For example, searching for
“Hendrix” in music and sound files will find files with Hendrix in the file name, the artist name,
album name, and so forth.
A word or phrase in the file: If you don’t remember the name of the file, but remember
something about its contents, you can enter that here. If you’re searching for a letter written to
Jack Jones, for example, and are pretty sure the letter contains “Dear Jack” or “Dear Mr.
Jones,” you can enter Jack or Jones as the content to search for.
Look in: This option enables you to expand or narrow the search to certain drives or folders. If
you know the file is in My Documents or one of the folders contained within My Documents, for
instance, you can choose My Documents as the place to look in. This speeds up the search,
because only that folder (and its subfolders) are searched.
When was it modified: If all you remember about the file is that you created or modified it
yesterday, last week, or within some other time frame, you can choose this option and specify
a range of dates.
What size is it: In the unlikely event that you happen to remember only the approximate size of
the file, you can choose this option to search for files within a range of sizes.
More advanced options: As the name implies, choosing More Advanced Options enables you
to narrow things down even further, including the following: