After you have created and saved a number of files, you may find that you want a more powerful tool to organize and manage your files than is available just through the Windows Save dialog.

The most powerful tool for managing files in Windows is the Windows Explorer.

To start Windows Explorer, first right-click on the Start button.

(Note that this is a right-click, not a left-click).

A popup menu appears.

The items in this menu are different depending on the machine you use, but one of the items will always be Explore.

Clicking on the Explore item opens Windows Explorer.

Windows Explorer is divided into two panes.

1. The left pane shows the folders on your machine, arranged in a tree structure.
2. The right pane shows the contents of whatever folder is selected in the left pane.

A small square with a plus or minus sign is associated with each folder.

This small plus/minus icon is called a node.

• Minus means that the folder has subfolders, and they are being shown (i.e., the node is open).
• Plus means that the folder has subfolders, and the the subfolders are being hidden (i.e. the node is closed).

Clicking on a minus sign closes the node.

The minus sign changes into a plus sign.

Clicking on a plus sign opens the node.

The plus sign changes to a minus sign.

In this screenshot, the node has been closed again. The arrow is indicating a scrollbar for the left pane. Only part of the folder tree is showing in the left pane, because it is too large to fit. Using the scrollbar, we can scroll to a different part of the tree.

Here we have moved the scroll bar to the top of the pane, so, the top of the folder tree is showing.

In the next screenshot, we will close the node for the C: drive.

(The C: drive is the hard drive of the machine being illustrated. Windows assigns drive letters to storage devices.)

The node for the C: drive has been closed.

In this screenshot, we can see that the root of the folder tree is called Desktop. The Desktop node has been selected, and the contents of the Windows Desktop for this machine are displaying in the right pane.

The other nodes below Desktop are as follows:

• My Documents: This is a link to the My Documents folder, which is actually located on one of your hard disks.
• My Computer: This node contains a list of all of the storage devices on the computer.
• My Network Places: This shows computers connected to your computer. This will be covered in a later tutorial. 
• Recycle Bin: When you delete a file, it goes here. You can then either permanently delete it, or restore it.
• Internet Explorer: Clicking on this icon allows you to view web pages in the right pane.

You can now navigate through Windows Explorer using the tree view in the left pane. In the next few tutorials we'll cover:

• Changing the view format in the right pane.
• Adding and deleting folders and files.
• Copying, Moving and Deleting files and folders.
• Selecting multiple folders and files.
• Searching for folders and files.