Windows XP Power Hound

Working with Files and Folders

Isn't it amazing how today's powerful computers have turned people into . . . their own personal file clerks. Computers were supposed to eliminate this drudgery. Fortunately, Windows Explorer comes with a few built-in tools that give you better ways to manage your files and folders. This section reviews a handful of particularly useful tricks.

Instantly Jumping to a File or Folder

Using Windows Explorer to navigate to a particular file or folder can be tedious. Here's a better way to get exactly where you want to go. If you're in the left pane of Windows Explorer (also called the Folder pane), type the first letter or letters of the name of the folder you want to access. Windows transports you immediately to the correct place. If you're inside a folder, type the first few letters of the name of the file you need.

You can also jump quickly to the top or bottom of a list of folders or files. To go to the beginning of a list, press Home; to go to the end, press End.

Copying and Moving Files Faster

Hardly anyone knows about one of the most useful features in Windows Explorer: the Send To command, which is like an expressway for moving files. Here's how it works. When you right-click a file in Windows Explorer, one of the shortcut menu options that pops up is Send To. Selecting this option lets you copy or move the file to a list of destinations like your floppy drive or CD burner (Figure 3-5). This method is immeasurably faster than dragging a file across ...