SharePoint 2007: The Definitive Guide

Explorer View

Explorer view in general is a quick way to upload large amounts of documents without manually loading the documents one at a time. This view is available both embedded within the browser and as a regular Windows window. The general menu options for the most part are the same as a regular Windows Explorer view and don't have specific SharePoint menu options. Any SharePoint-specific options will need to be done from the browser or the associated Office application.

This section goes into general detail about the availability and functionality that the view offers, and some of the limitations and possible problem areas that might be encountered in the workplace.

Explorer View Availability

Explorer view is available for the Document Library, Form Library, Picture Library, Report Library, Translation Management Library, Data Connection Library, and Slide Library, but not for the Wiki Page Library.

Microsoft offers support for the "Open with Windows Explorer" option only in Internet Explorer versions 6 and 7. This is not to say that it won't work in older versions, but there's no support for it if problems do occur.

Forms Folder

When you first open Explorer view for a new library, you will notice that there is a folder called Forms—this is a system folder that contains all the ASPX pages that make up the library. In older versions of SharePoint, this folder could be deleted, which made the library unusable. It is no longer possible to delete the Forms folder, but users may wonder ...