Both of the navigational schemes described so far in this chapter have only one goal in life: to help you manage your icons. Windows displays every piece of software and hardware on your PC as an independent icon. You could spend your entire workday just mastering the techniques of naming, copying, moving, and deleting these icons—and plenty of people do.
To rename a file, folder, printer, or disk icon, begin like this:
Click carefully, just once, on the icon's name (not the icon itself).
Click its icon and then press F2.
Right-click the icon and choose Rename from the shortcut menu.
A "renaming rectangle" now appears around the current name; type the new name you want, and then press Enter. If another icon in the folder has the same name, or if you included an illegal character (described next), Windows beeps and makes you choose a different name.
A folder or file name can be up to 255 characters long, including spaces and the file extension (the three-letter suffix that identifies the type of file). Windows won't let you use the following symbols in a filename, however (because they're reserved for behind-the-scenes use by Windows itself): / : * ? " < > |
Even so, it's not a good idea to create names that approach the 255-character maximum length, because you'll have trouble reading their names in Windows Explorer and in dialog boxes. Furthermore, some of your older applications (those that aren't certified for Windows 2000) may not be able to open files with extremely long filenames.
You can give more than one file or folder the same name, as long as they're not in the same folder. For example, you can have as many files named "Letter to Smith" as you wish, as long as each is in a different folder.
As you may have read in Chapter 1, properties are a big deal in Windows. Properties are preference settings, and you can change them independently for every icon on your machine.
To view the Properties dialog box (Figure 5-3) for an icon, choose your favorite technique:
Right-click the icon; choose Properties from the shortcut menu.
While pressing Alt, double-click the icon.
Highlight the icon, and then press Alt+Enter.
Highlight the icon, and then click the Properties button on the Standard Buttons window toolbar (if you see it).
Figure 5-3. The Properties dialog boxes are different for every kind of icon. In the months and years to come, you may find many occasions when adjusting the behavior of some icon has big benefits in simplicity and productivity. Left: The System Properties dialog box for a document. Right: The Properties dialog box for a hard drive icon.
But these settings aren't the same for every kind of icon. Here's what you can expect from opening the Properties dialog boxes for various kinds of desktop icons (see Figure 5-3).
My Computer. This Properties dialog box is packed with useful information about your machine. For example, the General tab (shown in Figure 5-3) tells you what kind of processor is inside, how much memory (RAM) your PC has, and what version of Windows you've got. The Network Identification tab shows your PC's name and workgroup, as it shows up on the network. The Hardware tab offers access to several equipment-related tools, such as the Device Manager and the Hardware Wizard (see Chapter 16).
The User Profiles tab shows the list of people who've been given accounts on this machine; you can use the buttons here to change their type (see Section 17.4), to copy their settings, or to delete them. Finally, the Advanced tab provides some very technical options pertaining to the computer's virtual memory, environment, startup options, and system-failure options.
Disks. On the General tab, you get to see the disk's name (which you can change), its capacity (which you can't change), and how much of it is full. The Tools tab offers quick access to such disk-maintenance tools as Backup and the disk defragmenter (see Chapter 19); Hardware tells you the brand and model names for your disks; the Sharing tab (if you have it) controls who can access this disk over the network (see Chapter 15).
Data files. The General properties for a plain old file, such as one of your documents, control special file-system properties known as attributes. For example, the read-only attribute locks the document; you can open it and read it, but you can't make any changes to it. Hidden makes the icon invisible.
The Custom and Summary tabs, if available, let you type in descriptive information about the file for easier searching and tracking. (The Custom tab is part of the Microsoft Office Fast Find feature, and shows up only on Office documents; Windows 2000 uses the information on the Summary tab to assist its Indexing Service, which is described on Section 3.6.2.)
Folders. Here you get the same checkbox options described for data files. But you may also see a separate tab called Sharing, which lets you make this folder available for invasion by other people on your office network (see Chapter 13).
Program files. A program file offers many of the same options as data files (including the same General, Security, and Summary tabs). It also offers a Version tab that stores a considerable wealth of detail about the program's version number, corporate parent, language, and so on.
Shortcuts. You can read about these useful controls at the end of this chapter.
Tip
The Properties dialog boxes for disks, folders, and data files may also offer a Security tab, which gives you control over which network citizens are allowed to meddle with this information. Details in Section 13.5.2.2-304.