Name
files and folders
Synopsis
Elements of the hierarchical filesystem used to store data and programs in Windows 2000.
Description
The basic concept of files and folders is familiar to anyone who has worked with earlier versions of Microsoft Windows, so I will cover it here only briefly. Regardless of which disk filesystem (FAT, FAT32, or NTFS) is used to format local partitions and volumes, Windows 2000 organizes files by grouping them into folders (also called directories). These folders are themselves grouped hierarchically into a tree of files and folders starting with the root of each partition or volume.
For example, the executable for the game of Solitaire
(sol.exe
) by default is found in the System32 folder, which is in the
\Winnt
folder, which is in the root of
C: drive. The location of
sol.exe
can be specified either by its absolute
path (C:\Winnt\System32\sol.exe
) or by the
relative path from the current directory (e.g., if the current
directory is C:\Winnt\Help,
then the relative
path to sol.exe
would be
..\System32\sol.exe
).
The local filesystem can be accessed in many different ways. For
example, to display the icon representing
sol.exe
, you could:
Open Windows Explorer from the Accessories program group and browse the folder hierarchy in the lefthand pane until
C:\Winnt\System32
is selected, and then locatesol.exe
in the righthand pane. You can then click the Search button on the toolbar to open a lefthand Search pane and use it to findsol.exe
within System32.Open My ...
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