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.Explorer displays an icon for each drive in your computer.Exactly what you see when My Computeropens depends on the drives that your system has.Just about every computer has a local hard drivenamed C:, as well a floppy drive named A: and a CD-ROM or DVD drive named D:, as in the exampleshown 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.Fornow, 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 likelydisplay as folder and file icons.Folders are just groups of files that somehow go together.Folders arealways represented by manila file folder icons.The icon for a file will vary with the type of informationthe file contains, as well as the specific view you re using in Explorer at the moment, as discussed laterin this chapter.If you open the icon for the C: drive, for example, you ll probably see at least three folders namedDocuments and Settings, Programs Files, and WINDOWS as in Figure 2-32.(If instead you see amessage saying that the files are hidden, choose Show the Contents of This Drive under System Tasksto display the contents of the drive.) I don t recommend that you mess with the contents of any of thesefolders.The only safe place for a beginner to work with files on the hard disk is in the folder named MyDocuments, discussed in a moment.Just for your basic knowledge, however, here s what s stored inthose folders:page 51 Windows XP BibleFigure 2-32: Viewing the contents of the C: drive on one of my computersDocuments and Settings: Contains folders and files that are unique to you, the currentuser of this computer.Your My Documents folder is contained within this folder.But thereare 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 theirfiles in a subfolder within this Program Files folder.Unless you really know what you redoing, you d be wise to stay out of this folder and let Windows manage it for you behind thescenes.You can start any program that s installed on your computer from the Start menu, orthe All Programs option available on that menu.WINDOWS: The files that make up your Windows operating system are stored within thisfolder.This is another folder you ll want to stay out of, unless you re an expert who hassome 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 alwaysopen that icon to view the hard drive s contents.Obviously, you can insert and remove disks from drivesthat support removable disks, such as your floppy (A:) and CD-ROM or DVD (D:) drive.To view thecontents 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 tvisible when you first view the contents of your C: drive.The My Documents folder now exists as asubfolder within Documents and Settings.If you open that folder, you ll see a folder for each user whohas an account on this computer, as well as a few other folders.If you open the folder that bears youruser name, you ll see your My Documents folder within that folder.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 singleMy Documents folders.Each user also has his own desktop, and Start menu settings, Favorites, and soforth, 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 needfor you to ever dig around in any subfolders within Documents and Settings.You can get to your ownMy 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
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