File management
New features to keep your files organised
Our computers have become repositories for our lives. We store our work, letters, emails, photos, music and more on the hard drive. The number of files can become large and unwieldy over the years and for most of us it becomes harder to find what we want. It's a constant challenge for operating system designers to find new ways to store and retrieve our information without having to spend hours trawling through lists of folders and search results.
Windows 7 has a few cool features to help find the file you want quickly and easily. We'll talk you through these new features below.
Jump Lists
Jump Lists can be accessed by right-clicking almost any icon in the taskbar. They show the most recently accessed file, website, photo, video or music file you've listened to or viewed (each Jump Jist is designed around the specific program). You can then click on a Jump List item to open it.
If you have a favourite song, or you're working on a literary masterpiece in Word, you can pin it to a Jump List for easy access. Simply drag the file over the program's icon in the task bar and let go, or if it's in your 'Recent' list, you can click the pushpin icon too. When you access the Jump List you'll see a new sectioned called 'Pinned' which contains the file you just dragged across.
Libraries
If you're anything like us then you've probably got files stored all over the place. Some might be on an external hard drive, while others might be on the study PC. Wouldn't it be great if you could collate all of these sources together in one place for easy access? The new libraries feature of Windows 7 lets you do just that.
Imagine you're working on a project but all the files, photos and videos are stored in different places. Create a library for your project and point it to all those locations. The files will still be stored in those different locations, but when you go into your project library they'll be there ready and waiting as if they were all on your computer.
Creating a library
- Click the Start button, then click on 'Computer'.
- Click 'Libraries' in the left hand menu pane.
- Click 'New library'.
- Give your new library a name, for example, 'My Project'. It will appear in the libraries list.
- Double-click your new library. As it's new your library will be empty and you'll be asked to add a folder location. Click 'Include a folder'.
- A new window will open and you can browse to the folder you want to include. Click it once to highlight the folder and then click the 'Include folder' button.
- The folder you included will now appear in your library. To add more folders simply click the 'Includes: 1 location' link under library title at the top of the screen.
- A new screen opens which displays the folders currently added in your library. From here you can click 'Add...' to add more folders, or 'Remove' to remove a folder you no longer need in your library (this won't delete the folder from its original location).
Windows Search
The search function of Windows 7 has been improved and you can now use it to search for anything you want; a program, email, document type and more.
- Click the Start button then start to type something in the search box. Windows will automatically start to display items it thinks you may be interested in. Click an item to open it.
- If you want to see more results click 'See more results' to open the main search screen. You'll see a list of results. If you click one you can often see a preview of the file without even opening the file.
- You can refine your search by adding a filter. Simply click into the search box in the top right of the window to access the different filters.
