Windows 10 May 2019 Update The Missing Manual: The Book That Should Have Been in the Box

properties” strips all that stuff out of a file, usually because you’re

about to send it to somebody and don’t want them to know about
its revision history, modification dates, and so on.




Tip
You can just click the icon to open the Properties dialog box. That is, you don’t actually have to
choose from the submenu.





Open. Do you really need a button that opens the selected icon?
Yes, if it’s a type of file that more than one program can open. For

example, suppose you have a picture file. Do you want to open it in
Photoshop or in the Photos app? This pop-up menu changes to
reflect the programs that are capable of opening the selected icon.


Edit. This button opens the highlighted icon in the first program
Windows finds that can edit that file type.


History. This button opens a window that tracks the file’s editing
history. It’s an essential part of the File History feature described
on “Turning System Restore Off”; it lets you rewind a certain

document to an earlier version.

Select all, Select none. As you’d guess, these commands highlight
all the icons in the window, or none of them.


Invert selection. This command swaps what you’ve selected. In
other words, if you’ve highlighted files A and B (but not C and D),

then this command highlights files C and D and deselects A and B.



Share Tab

This tab offers a full line of controls for sharing the icons in the window—

via email, fax, printer, or other people on your network.

Share. Click to open a panel listing apps that can hand off the

selected item. For example, if you’ve selected a file, the choices
might include Mail (to send it as an attachment) or Dropbox (to put
a copy in your Dropbox). This Share panel is a standard Windows
10 element, and it appears in many apps.


Email. Click to open a new outgoing email message with the
selected file(s) attached, ready to address and send.


Zip. Compresses the selected file(s) into one compact, self-
contained .zip file. Great for sending a batch of related files to

somebody in a way that contains all the necessary pieces.

Burn to disc. Prompts you to insert a blank CD or DVD; Windows
will burn a copy of the selected file(s) onto that disc. (If you don’t

have a disc burner, then this icon is dimmed.)

Print. Opens the document and, depending on what kind of file it

is, prepares it for printing.

Fax. Sends the selected file(s) to your fax modem, if you have one.


Specific people. Makes the selected file(s) available for accessing
over the network by people you specify. (Chapter 19 has details.)

When you click here, a window opens up with a list of people on
the network, so you can choose the lucky collaborators.

Remove access. Turns off network sharing so that, once again,

you’re the only person who can see the selected file(s).

Advanced security. This control, too, affects file sharing on the

network. It gives you much finer control over who’s allowed to do
what to the selected file: See it? Open it? Change it? Chapter 19

contains more on these file permissions.


View Tab

This tab controls the look, arrangement, and layout of the icons in the

window: list view, icon view, sorted alphabetically, sorted chronologically,
and so on. For the complete rundown, see “The ‘Folder Options’ Options,”
a free PDF appendix to this book. It’s on the Missing CD at
missingmanuals.com.




Library Tools/Manage Tab

In a few places, you get a bonus tab—with a weird double-stacked title.

These tabs appear only when you’ve opened the window of a library—a
special class of folders that can display the contents of other folders,
wherever they may actually sit on your machine, without your having to
move them. You can read more about libraries on this book’s Missing CD;

see the PDF appendix “Libraries” at missingmanuals.com.



Music Tools/Play Tab


In the navigation list at the left side of a File Explorer window, folders like
Music and Pictures await your inspection. Each offers a special Ribbon tab
of its own. For example, when you’ve selected a music file in the Music
library (either the one Windows gives you or one you’ve made yourself),

the window bears a new double-decker tab called Music Tools/Play. These
are your options:


Play. Opens your music-playback program and begins playing the
highlighted music. (If you’ve never selected a favorite playback

program, Windows offers you a list of music programs and invites
you to choose one.)


Play all. Opens your playback app and begins playing everything
in the window.

Add to playlist. Adds the highlighted music file to a new, untitled

playlist in Windows Media Player. The idea is that you can root
around here, in a File Explorer window, adding files to a playlist
without having to open Media Player first.

Picture Tools/Manage Tab


Opening the Pictures library folder offers a special double-decker tab, too,
stocked with commands for controlling pictures. They include these:


Rotate left, Rotate right. Turns the selected photos 90 degrees.
Handy if they’re coming up turned sideways because of the way
you held the camera.


Slide show. Starts an immediate full-screen slideshow. Click the
mouse or tap to go to the next picture; press the arrow keys to go

forward or backward faster; press the Esc key to stop the show.

Set as background. Instantly applies the selected photo to your

desktop as its new wallpaper!

Cast to Device. If you have an Xbox, a Miracast adapter, or
another playback gadget attached to your TV, then you can send a

photo or slideshow from your Windows machine to the big screen
with this one click.



Tabucopia


Incredibly, that’s not all the tabs. You’ll see other tabs appear when you
open certain window types. There’s a Ribbon tab just for the Recycle Bin.
There’s a Disk Tools tab (when you open a disk window), a Shortcut Tools

tab (for a shortcut), an Application Tools tab (for a program), and so on.
Part of the fun is encountering new tabs you’ve never seen before.




The File Explorer Address Bar


When you’re working at the desktop—that is, opening File Explorer folder

windows—you’ll find a few additional controls dotting the edges.

In a web browser, the address bar is where you type the addresses of the
websites you want to visit. In a File Explorer window, the address bar is
more of a “bread-crumbs bar” (that’s a shout-out to Hansel and Gretel fans).

That is, it now shows the path you’ve taken—folders you burrowed through

—to arrive where you are now (Figure 2-6).


































Figure 2-6. Top: The notation in the address bar, This PC Documents Summer Pix, indicates that
you opened the Documents folder and then opened the Summer Pix folder inside that.

Bottom: If you press Alt+D, the address bar restores the slash notation of Windows versions gone by
so you can type in a different address.

There are three especially cool things about this address bar:


It’s much easier to read. Those little brackets are clearer
separators of folder names than the older\slash\notation. And

instead of drive letters like C:, you see the drive names.




Tip

If the succession of nested folders’ names is too long to fit the window, then a microscopic
icon appears at the left end of the address. Click it to reveal a drop-down menu showing, from last
to first, the other folders you’ve had to burrow through to get here.

(Below the divider line, you see, for your convenience, the names of all the folders on your
desktop.)

It’s clickable. You can click any bread crumb to open the

corresponding folder. For example, if you’re viewing the Casey
Pictures Halloween folder, then you can click the word Pictures
to backtrack to the Pictures folder.


You can still edit it. The address bar of old was still a powerful
tool, because you could type in a folder address directly (using the
slash notation).


Actually, you still can. You can “open” the address bar for editing
in any of four different ways: (1) Press Alt+D. (2) Click the tiny
icon to the left of the address. (3) Click any blank spot. (4) Right-

click (or hold your finger down) anywhere in the address; from the
shortcut menu, choose Edit Address.

In each case, the address bar changes to reveal the old-style slash

notation, ready for editing (Figure 2-6, bottom).




Tip

After you’ve had a good look, press Esc to restore the notation.




Components of the Address Bar


On top of all that, the address bar houses a few additional doodads that
make it easy for you to jump around on your hard drive (Figure 2-7):


Back ( ), Forward ( ). Just as in a web browser, the Back
button opens whatever window you opened just before this one.
Once you’ve used the Back button, you can then use the Forward

button to return to the window where you started. Keyboard
shortcuts: Alt+ , Alt+ .

Recent pages list. Click the to the left of the address bar to see

a list of folders you’ve had open recently; it’s like a multilevel
Back button.

Recent folders list. Click the at the right end of the address bar

to see a drop-down menu of addresses you’ve recently typed.































Figure 2-7. The address bar is crawling with useful controls and clickable gizmos. It may
take you awhile to appreciate the difference between the little to the left of the address

bar and the to its right, though. The left-side one shows a list of folders you’ve had
open recently; the right-side one shows addresses you’ve explicitly typed (and not passed
through by clicking).


Up ( ). This delightful button, right next to the address bar, means
“Open the parent folder of this one.” It’s a novice-friendly
incarnation of the trusty Alt+ keystroke.


For example, if you’ve drilled down into the USA Texas
Houston folder, you could hit this button (or Alt+ to pop

“upward” to the Texas folder, again for the USA folder, and so on.
If you hit enough times, you wind up at your desktop.


Contents list. This one takes some explaining, but for efficiency
nuts, it’s a gift from the gods.

It turns out that the little next to each folder name is actually a

drop-down menu. Click it to see what’s in the folder name to its
left.

How is this useful? Suppose you’re viewing the contents of the

USA Florida Miami folder, but you decide that the file you’re
looking for is actually in the USA California folder. Do you have
to click the Back button, retracing your steps to the USA folder,
only to then walk back down a different branch of the folder tree?

No, you don’t. You just click the that’s next to the USA folder’s
name and choose California from the list.

POWER USERS’ CLINIC THE MASTER FILE
EXPLORER KEYBOARD-SHORTCUT LIST


If you arrive home one day to discover that your mouse has
been stolen, or if you simply like using the keyboard, you’ll
enjoy the shortcuts that work in File Explorer:


F6 or Tab cycles the “focus” (highlighting) among the
different parts of the window: Favorite Links, address bar,
main window, search box, and so on.

Shift+Ctrl+N makes a new empty folder.


F4 highlights the address bar and pops open the list of previous
addresses. (Press Alt+D to highlight the address bar without
opening the pop-up menu.)


Alt+ opens the previously viewed window, as though you’d
clicked the Back button in a browser. Once you’ve used Alt+
, you can press Alt+ to move forward through your recently

open windows.

Backspace does the same thing as Alt+ . It, too, walks you
backward through the most recent windows you’ve had open.

That’s a change from Windows XP, when Backspace meant
“up,” as in, “Take me to the parent folder” (see Alt+ , next).


Alt+ opens the parent window of whatever you’re looking at
now—just like the button next to the address bar.

Alt+double-clicking an icon opens the Properties window for

that icon. (It shows the same sort of information you’d find in
the Details pane.) Or, if the icon is already highlighted, press
Alt+Enter.


Alt+P hides or shows the Preview pane.

F11 enters or exits full-screen mode, in which the current
window fills the entire screen. Even the taskbar and Ribbon are

hidden. This effect is more useful in a web browser than at the

desktop, but you never know; sometimes you want to see
everything in a folder.

Shift+Ctrl+E adjusts the navigation pane so it reveals the
folder path of whatever window is open right now, expanding

the indented folder icons as necessary.

Press letter keys to highlight a folder or file that begins with

that letter, or press the and keys to “walk” up and down a
list of icons.



Refresh ( ). If you suspect that the window contents aren’t up to
date (for example, that maybe somebody has just dropped

something new into it from across the network), then click this
button, or press F5, to make Windows update the display.


Search box. Type a search phrase into this box to find what you’re
looking for within this window.



What to Type into the Address Bar


When you click the tiny folder icon at the left end of the address bar (or
press Alt+D), the bracket notation changes to the slash\notation, meaning
that you can edit the address. At this point, the address bar is like the little

opening in the glass divider that lets you speak to your New York cab
driver; you tell it where you want to go. Here’s what you can type there
(press Enter afterward):


A web address. You can leave off the https:// portion. Just type the
body of the web address, such as www.sony.com, into this strip.

When you press Enter (or click the button to the right of the
address box, called the Go button), your web browser opens to the

web page you specified.

Tip

If you press Ctrl+Enter instead of just Enter, you can surround whatever you’ve just typed into the
address bar with https://www. and .com. See Chapter 9 for even more address shortcuts along
these lines.





A search phrase. If you type some text into this strip that isn’t
obviously a web address, then Windows assumes you’re telling it,
“Go online and search for this phrase.” From here, it works exactly

as though you’d typed into the address/search bar of Microsoft
Edge.


A folder name. You can also type one of several important folder
names into this strip, such as This PC, Documents, Music, and so
on. When you press Enter, that particular folder window opens.




Tip

This window has AutoComplete. That is, if you type pi and then press Tab, the address bar
completes the word Pictures for you. (If it guesses wrong, press Tab again.)




A program or path name. This provides another way to open

files, if you know where they’re located. To open the family budget
spreadsheet that’s in Monica’s Documents folder, you might type
C:\Users\Monica\Documents\familybudget.xls.


In each case, as soon as you begin to type, a pop-up list of recently visited
websites, files, or folders appears below the address bar. Windows is trying

to save you some typing. If you see what you’re looking for, click it with
the mouse, or press the key to highlight the one you want, and then press

Enter.




Optional Window Panes

Most File Explorer windows have some basic informational stuff across the

top: the address bar and the Ribbon, at the very least.

But that’s just the beginning. As shown in Figure 2-8, you can add a new
panel to the right side of any File Explorer window. It can take one of two
forms: a Preview (of the selected icon) or a panel of Details. Turning one of

these panels on may make your window feel claustrophobic, but at least
you’ll know absolutely everything there is to know about your files and
folders.


The on/off switch for this panel is on the View tab of the Ribbon.




Tip
You can adjust the size of any pane by dragging the dividing line that separates it from the main
window. (You know you’ve got the right spot when your cursor turns into a double-headed arrow.)





Preview Pane

The Preview pane appears either when you click the Preview pane button
(shown in Figure 2-8) or when you press Alt+P.

Figure 2-8. Use the View tab of the Ribbon to summon or dismiss the Preview or Details pane at the
right side of the window. (You can have only one or the other visible—not both, as you could in
Windows 7.)

Choose the name of a pane once to make it appear, a second time to hide it.

Inset: The taller you make the Details pane, the more information you reveal about the selected item.
It can be handy when you’re examining common file types like pictures,
text files, RTF files, and Office documents. As you click each icon, you see

a magnified thumbnail version of what’s actually in that document. (Alas,
the Preview pane can’t play back music and movie files right in place.)

Now, the Preview pane isn’t omniscient; right out of the box, Windows

can’t display the contents of oddball document types like, say, sheet music
or 3D modeling files. But as you install new programs, the Preview pane
can get smarter. Install Office, for example, and it can display Office files’

contents; install Adobe Acrobat, and it can show you PDF files. Whether or
not the Preview pane recognizes a certain document type depends on the

effort expended by the programmers who wrote its program (that is,

whether they wrote preview handlers for their document types).


Details Pane


To open this panel (Figure 2-8, inset), click “Details pane” on the Ribbon,
or press Shift+Alt+P. You get all kinds of information about whatever icon

you’ve clicked in the main part of the window: its size, date, type, and so
on. Some examples:


For a music file, the Details pane reveals the song’s duration, band
and album names, genre, the star rating you’ve provided, and so

on.

For a disk icon, you get statistics about its formatting scheme,

capacity, and how much of it is full.

For a Microsoft Office document, you see when it was created
and modified, how many pages it has, who wrote it, and so on.


If nothing is selected, you get information about the open window
itself: namely, how many items are in it.


If you select several icons at once, this pane shows you the sum
of their file sizes—a great feature when you’re burning a CD, for

example, and don’t want to exceed the 650 MB limit. You also see
the range of dates when the icons were created and modified.


What’s especially intriguing is that you can edit many of these details, just
by clicking and typing.



Navigation Pane


The navigation pane is the helpful folder map at the left side of a File
Explorer window. It’s something like a master map of your computer, with
a special focus on the places and things you might want to visit most often.



Quick access list

At the top of the navigation pane, there’s a collapsible list called “Quick

access.” (It has nothing to do with the Quick Access toolbar.)

Like the Favorites list in earlier Windows versions, this one’s intended to be
one-stop shopping for important folders and disks, in two categories:


Folders and disks that you “pin” here.

Folders and disks you use frequently. Windows chooses them

automatically.

“Quick access” displays links to these folders, wherever they happen to be

on your machine. You’re never actually moving them.

This list is a big deal. A “Quick access” window, in fact, greets you every
time you open a File Explorer window. That’s how important Microsoft

considers this list.




Tip

File Explorer doesn’t have to fill every window with “Quick access.” It can, if you prefer, show
you the primary folders of your PC, as it did in the old days. To make that happen, start in a File
Explorer window. On the Ribbon’s View tab, click Options. At the top of the resulting Folder
Options window, change the “Open File Explorer to” drop-down menu to “This PC,” and click
OK.





Taking the time to install your favorite folders here can save you a lot of
repetitive folder-burrowing. One click on an item’s name opens the

corresponding window. For example, click the Pictures icon to view the
contents of your Pictures folder in the main part of the window.

The beauty of this parking lot for containers is that it’s so easy to set up

with your favorite places. For example:

Install a new folder, disk, library, or saved search. Drag its icon

off your desktop (or out of a window) into any spot in the “Quick
access” list (Figure 2-9, top).

Or right-click the icon of any folder or disk (or hold your finger

down on it); from the shortcut menu, choose “Pin to Quick access.”




















































Figure 2-9. Top: The quickest way to install a folder into the “Quick access” list is just to
drag it there, as shown here.

Bottom: But there’s another way, too, that’s not so invisible. On the Home tab of the

Ribbon, the “Pin to Quick access” button adds all the selected icons to the list in one fell
swoop.

Remove an icon from “Quick access.” Right-click its name in the

list (or hold your finger down) to open the shortcut menu.

If you put this thing into the menu, choose “Unpin from Quick
access.” If Windows put it there (because you use it frequently),

choose “Remove from Quick access.” That frequently used item

disappears and won’t reappear, even if you use it all the time.

In either case, you haven’t actually removed anything from your
PC; you’ve just unhitched its alias from the navigation pane.


Rearrange the icons by dragging them up or down in the list.
Release the mouse when the black horizontal line lands in the
desired new location.





Note
Windows can’t sort this list alphabetically.





Adjust the width of the pane by dragging the vertical divider bar
right or left.




Tip

If you drag carefully, you can position the divider bar just to the right of the disk and folder icons,
thereby hiding their names almost completely. Some people find it a tidier look; you can always
identify the folder names by pointing to them without clicking.





Make “Quick access” stop listing the folders and files you use
often. In a File Explorer window, click the Ribbon’s View tab.
Click Options to open the Folder Options window. Turn off “Show

recently used files in Quick access” or “Show frequently used
folders in Quick access” to make it stop tracking your file and
folder use, respectively. Click OK.


You’re still free to pin stuff there yourself, if you like; it’s just that
Windows will no longer add things it sees you using often.

Tip

If you really like the “Quick access” concept, you can add its name to the Start menu’s right side.
That’ll give you a quick way to open it whenever the Start menu is open.

Right-click (or hold your finger down on) the actual words “Quick access” at the top of the
“Quick access” list. From the shortcut menu, choose Pin to Start.




OneDrive

Here are the contents of your Microsoft OneDrive—your free, 5-gigabyte

“hard drive in the sky” (actually, on the internet). Figure 3-15 offers the
details.


This PC

The next heading is This PC. (Yes, Microsoft has finally retired the term

“My Computer.”) When you expand this heading, you see a list of all your
drives (including the main C: drive), each of which is also expandable

(Figure 2-10). In essence, this view can show you every folder on the
machine at once. It lets you burrow very deeply into your hard drive’s nest
of folders without losing your bearings.


Libraries


The next section of the navigation pane may list your libraries, if you’ve
turned on this feature; see the free PDF appendix to this chapter called
“Libraries” on this book’s “Missing CD” (missingmanuals.com).

Figure 2-10. When you click a disk or folder in the navigation pane—including the This PC
hierarchy—the main window displays its contents, including files and folders. Double-click to expand
a disk or folder, opening a new, indented list of what’s inside; double-click again to collapse the
folder list. (Clicking the flippy accomplishes the same thing.)

At deeper levels of indentation, you may not be able to read an icon’s full name. Point to it without
clicking to see an identifying tooltip, as shown here.


Network

The Network heading shows your entire network—Macs, PCs running
older Windows versions, Linux boxes, whatever.



Flippy arrows

The navigation list displays only disks and folders, never individual files.
To see those, look at the main window, which displays the contents (folders
and files) of whatever disk or folder you click.


To expand a folder or disk that appears in the nav pane, double-click its
name, or click the next to its name. You’ve just turned the nav list into an

outline; the contents of the folder appear in an indented list, as shown in

Figure 2-10. Double-click the folder’s name again to collapse the folder
listing.




Tip
Windows can, if you like, expand the folder list automatically as you navigate your folders. Open
the Music folder with your mouse, for example, and the Music folder’s flippy is automatically
opened, giving you a visual representation of where you are. Sound useful? Turn it on like this:
On the Ribbon’s View tab, click Options. On the View tab of the resulting Folder Options dialog
box, turn on “Expand to open folder.” Click OK.





By selectively expanding folders like this, you can, in effect, peer inside
two or more folders simultaneously, all within the single navigation list.

You can move files around by dragging them onto the tiny folder icons, too.




Tip
Ordinarily, the nav pane shows only folders that Microsoft thinks you’d be interested in—folders
that contain your stuff, for example. But, if you like, it can display more Windowsy folders like
the Control Panel and Recycle Bin, too. On the Ribbon’s View tab, click Options; the Folder
Options dialog box appears. On that View tab, turn on “Show all folders.” Click OK.






Tags, Metadata, and Properties


See all that information in the Details pane—Date, Size, Title, and so on
(Figure 2-11)? That’s known by geeks as metadata (Greek for “data about

data”).

Figure 2-11. Click the information you want to change; if a text-editing box appears, you’ve hit pay
dirt. Type away, and then press Enter (or click the Save button at the bottom of the dialog box). To
input a list (of tags or authors, for example), type a semi colon (;) after each one.

Different kinds of files provide different sorts of details. For a document,
for example, you might see Authors, Comments, Title, Categories, Status,
and so on. For an MP3 music file, you get Artists, Album, Genre, Year, and

so on. For a photo, you get Date Taken, Title, Size, and so on.

Oddly (and usefully) enough, you can actually edit some of this stuff.

Some of the metadata is off-limits. For example, you can’t edit the Date

Created or Date Modified info. (Sorry, defense attorneys.) But you can edit
the star ratings for music or pictures. Click the third star to give a song a 3,
for example. Most usefully of all, you can edit the Tags box for almost any

kind of icon. A tag is just a keyword. It can be anything you want: McDuffy

Proposal, Old Junk, Back Me Up. Later, you’ll be able to round up

everything with a certain tag, all in a single window, even though they
physically reside in different folders.

You’ll encounter tags in plenty of other places in Windows—and in this
book, especially when it comes to searching for photos and music.





Note
Weirdly, you can’t add tags or ratings to .bmp, .png, .avi, or .mpg files.





Many of the boxes here offer autocompletion, meaning that Windows
proposes finishing a name or a text tidbit for you if it recognizes what
you’ve started to type.





Tip
You can tag a bunch of icons at once. Just highlight them all and then change the corresponding
detail in the Details pane once. This is a great trick for applying a tag or a star rating to a mass of
files quickly.




Click Save when you’re finished.



Properties


The Details pane shows some of the most important details about a file, but
if you really want to see the entire metadata dossier for an icon, open its
Properties dialog box (Figure 2-12) using one of these tactics:


Select it. From the Home tab of the Ribbon, click Properties.

GEM IN THE ROUGH HOW TO SHED YOUR
METADATA’S SKIN


At the bottom of the Details tab of the Properties dialog box is
a peculiarly worded link: Remove Properties and Personal
Information. This is a privacy feature. It means “Clean away

all the metadata I’ve added myself, like author names, tag
keywords, and other insights into my own work routine.”

Microsoft’s thinking here is that you might not want other

people who encounter this document (as an email attachment,
for example) to have such a sweeping insight into the minutiae
of your own work routine.


When you click this link, the Remove Properties dialog box
appears, offering you a scrolling list of checkboxes: Title,
Rating, Tags, Comments, and lots and lots of others.


You can proceed in either of two ways. If you turn on “Create a
copy with all possible properties removed,” then all the
metadata that’s possible to erase (everything but items like File

Type, Name, and so on) will be stripped away. When you click
OK, Windows instantly creates a duplicate of the file (with the
word “Copy” tacked onto its name), ready for distribution to

the masses in its clean form. The original is left untouched.

If you choose “Remove the following properties from this file”
instead, you can specify exactly which file details you want

erased from the original. (Turn on the appropriate checkboxes.)



Right-click it (or hold your finger down on it). From the shortcut
menu, choose Properties.

Alt-double-click it.


If the icon is already highlighted, press Alt+Enter.

In each case, the Properties dialog box appears. It’s a lot like the one in

previous versions of Windows, in that it displays the file’s name, location,
size, and so on. But in Windows 10, it also bears a scrolling Details tab
that’s sometimes teeming with metadata details.














































Figure 2-12. If Windows knows anything about an icon, it’s in here. Scroll, scroll, and scroll some
more to find the tidbit you want to see—or to edit. As with the Details pane, many of these text
morsels are editable.



Window Views



Windows’ windows look just fine straight from the factory; the edges are
straight, and the text is perfectly legible. Still, if you’re going to stare at this
screen for half of your waking hours, you may as well investigate some of
the ways these windows can be enhanced.

For starters, you can view the files and folders in a File Explorer window in

either of two ways: as icons (of any size) or as a list (in several formats).
Figure 2-13 shows some of your options.

Every window remembers its view settings independently. You might prefer
to look over your Documents folder in List view (because it’s crammed

with files and folders), but you may prefer to view the Pictures library in
Icon view, where the icons look like miniatures of the actual photos.

To switch a window from one view to another, you have several options, as

shown in Figure 2-13, all of which involve the View tab of the Ribbon.




Tip
You can point to the icons in the View tab without clicking. The files in the window change as you
hover, so you can preview the effect before committing to it.





So what are these various views? And when should you use which? Here
you go:


Extra large icons, Large icons, Medium icons, Small icons. In
an icon view, every file, folder, and disk is represented by a small

picture—an icon. This humble image, a visual representation of
electronic bits, is the cornerstone of the entire Windows religion.
(Maybe that’s why it’s called an icon.)

Figure 2-13. Here’s a survey of window views in Windows’ desktop world.

From top: Medium icons, List view, Details view, and Content view.

List and Details views are great for windows with lots of files. Extra large icons (not
shown) are a great choice if you’re 30 feet away.

At larger icon sizes, the contents of your folder icons peek out just

enough so you can see them. In the Music folder, for example, a
singer’s folder shows the first album cover within; a folder full of
PowerPoint presentations shows the first slide or two; and so on.

Small icons put the files’ names to the right of the icons; the other

views put the name beneath the icon. You might want one of the
large settings for things like photos and the small settings when
you want to see more files without scrolling.




Tip

If you have a touchscreen, you can use the two-finger spreading gesture to enlarge icons, or the
pinching gesture to shrink them, right on the glass. If you have a mouse, you can enlarge or shrink
all the icons in a window—or switch to any other view—by turning your mouse’s scroll wheel
while you press the Ctrl key.




List view. This one packs, by far, the most files into the space of a

window; each file has a tiny icon to its left, and the list of files
wraps into as many columns as necessary to maximize the

window’s available space.

Details view. This is the same as List view, except that it presents
only a single column of files. It’s a table, really; additional columns

reveal the size, icon type, modification date, rating, and other
information.

Microsoft thinks you’ll really dig Details view. It’s so important

that there’s a dedicated “Switch to Details view” icon at the lower-
right corner of every window.

Furthermore, whenever you’re in Details view, you get two bonus

icons on the Ribbon’s View tab: “Add columns” and “Size all
columns to fit.” They’re described in the box on the next page.


Tiles view. Your icons appear at standard size, with name and file
details just to the right.

Tip

Lots of people never even realize they have Tiles and Content view options— because these two
choices are normally hidden on the Ribbon! You actually have to scroll that teeny tiny panel of
view icons to see them.





Content view. This view attempts to cram as many details about
each file as will fit in your window. It’s a table that shows not just
a file’s icon and name, but also its metadata (Properties) and, in the

case of text and Word files, even the first couple of lines of text
inside it. (If you’re not seeing all the file details you think you
should, then make the window bigger. Windows adds and subtracts

columns of information as needed to fit.)

You’ll get to know Content view very well once you start using the
Search feature, which uses this view to display your results.




Tip

At the lower right of every File Explorer window, you see repeats of the two styles Microsoft
thinks you’ll find the most useful: Details view and large thumbnails. (They even have keyboard
shortcuts: Ctrl+Shift+6 for Details, Ctrl+Shift+2 for large thumbnails.) By duplicating these
controls here, Windows is trying to save you the effort of opening the Ribbon if it doesn’t happen
to be open.




Immortalizing Your Tweaks


Once you’ve twiddled and tweaked a File Explorer window into a perfectly
efficient configuration of columns and views, you needn’t go through the
same exercise for each folder. Windows can immortalize your changes as

the standard setting for all your windows.

POWER USERS’ CLINIC SECRETS OF THE DETAILS
VIEW COLUMNS

In windows that contain a lot of icons, Details view is a powerful

weapon in the battle against chaos. You get to decide how wide the
columns should be, which of them should appear, and in what order.

Here are the details on Details:

Add or remove columns. When you choose “Add columns” in the
Ribbon’s View tab, or right-click any column heading (like Name or
Size), you see a shortcut menu with checkmarks next to the visible

columns: Name, Date modified, Size, and so on. Choose a column’s
name to make it appear or disappear.

New in the May 2019 Update, this menu also includes “Use friendly

dates,” meaning you’ll see words like “Today” and “Yesterday” when
appropriate in the Date column.

But don’t think you’re stuck with that handful of common columns. If
you click “More” in the shortcut menu, you open the Choose Details

dialog box, which lists 300 more column types, most of which are
useful only in certain circumstances: Album artist (for music files);
Copyright, Date taken, Exposure time (for photos); Nickname (for

people); Video compression (for movies); and on and on. To make one
of these columns appear, turn on its checkbox and then click OK; by the

time you’re done, your File Explorer window can look like a veritable
spreadsheet of information.

Rearrange the columns. You can rearrange your Details columns by

dragging their gray column headers horizontally. (You can even drag
the Name column out of first position.)

Change the column widths. If some text in a column is too long to fit,
Windows displays an ellipsis (…) after the first few letters of each

word. In that case, here’s a trick: Carefully position your cursor at the
right edge of the column’s header (Name, Size, or whatever—even to
the right of the button). When the cursor sprouts horizontal arrows,

double-click the divider line to make the column adjust itself, fitting
automatically to accommodate the longest item in the column.

If you’d rather adjust the column width manually, then just drag the

divider line horizontally. Doing so makes the column to the left of your
cursor wider or narrower. Or use the “Size all columns to fit” command.

It’s on the Ribbon’s View tab, too, and it makes all columns exactly as
wide as necessary.



On the Ribbon’s View tab, click Options. Click the View tab. Click Apply
to Folders, and confirm your decision by clicking Yes.

At this point, all your disk and folder windows open up with the same view,
sorting method, and so on. You’re still free to override those standard

settings on a window-by-window basis, however. (And if you change your

mind again and want to make all your maverick folder windows snap back
to the standard settings, then repeat the process but click Reset Folders
instead.)




Sorting, Grouping, and Filtering


It’s a computer—it had darned well better be able to sort your files

alphabetically, chronologically, or in any other way. But there are other
ways to impose order on your teeming icons. Grouping, filtering, and
searching can be handy, too.



Sorting Files


Sorting the files in a window alphabetically or chronologically is nice, but
it’s so 2014. You can now sort up, down, and sideways.


The trick is to click the “Sort by” drop-down icon, which is on the View tab
of the Ribbon. As you can see, it lists every conceivable sorting criterion:
Name, Date modified, Type, Size, and on and on. And if those 10 ways to

sort aren’t enough, you can select “Choose columns” from this menu to add
even more options to it: Attachments, Copyright, Data rate, and so on.

Figure 2-14. You sort a List view by clicking the column headings. Click a second time to reverse the
order.

The tiny triangle shows which way you’ve sorted the window: in ascending order (for example, A to
Z) or descending order (Z to A).

(Hint: When the smallest portion of the triangle is at the top, the smallest files are listed first when
viewed in size order.)


Sorting in Details view

In Details view, you get another way to sort. See the column headings, like
“Name,” “Size,” and “Type”? They aren’t just signposts; they’re also

buttons. Click “Name” for alphabetical order, “Date modified” for
chronological order, “Size” to view the largest files at the top, and so on
(Figure 2-14).


To reverse the sorting order, click the column heading a second time. The
tiny triangle turns upside down.

Note

Within each window, Windows groups folders separately from files. They get sorted, too, but
within their own little folder neighborhood.





Sorting using the shortcut menu

You can sort your icons in any window view without using the Ribbon, like
this: Right-click a blank spot in the window. From the shortcut menu,

choose “Sort by” and choose the criterion you want (Name, Date modified,
Type…) from the submenu.

There’s no triangle to tell you which way you’ve just sorted things; is it

oldest to newest or newest to oldest? To make that decision, you have to
right-click the window a second time; this time, from the “Sort by”

submenu, choose either Ascending or Descending.


Grouping


Grouping means “adding headings within the window and clustering the
icons beneath the headings.” The effect is shown in Figure 2-15

(“Yesterday,” “Earlier this month,” and so on), and so is the procedure. Try
it out; grouping can be a great way to wrangle some order from a seething

mass of icons.

Figure 2-15. To group the icons in a window, use the “Group by” drop-down menu in the Ribbon on
the View tab. (If the window isn’t especially wide, then you might see only the icon for the menu, not
the actual words “Group by.”)

You can also find the “Group by” menu by right-clicking a blank spot in the window. Use the
shortcut menu that results; that way, you don’t need the Ribbon.

Don’t forget that you can flip the sorting order of your groups. Reopen that

shortcut menu and the “Group by” submenu, and specify Ascending or
Descending.



Filtering


Filtering, a feature available only in Details view, means hiding. When you
turn on filtering, a bunch of the icons in a window disappear, which can
make filtering a sore subject for novices.

Tip

In case you one day think you’ve lost a bunch of important files, look for a checkmark next to a
column heading. That’s your clue that filtering is turned on and Windows is deliberately hiding
something from you.





On the positive side, filtering means screening out stuff you don’t care
about. When you’re looking for a document you know you worked on last
week, you can tell Windows to show you only the documents edited last

week.

You turn on filtering by opening the drop-down menu next to the column
heading you want. For instance, if you want to see only your five-star

photos in the Pictures folder, then open the Rating pop-up menu.

Sometimes you’ll see a whole long list of checkboxes in one of these pop-
up menus (Figure 2-16). For example, if you want to see only the PDF and

Word documents in your Documents folder—or only songs by The Beatles
in your Music folder—turn on the corresponding checkmarks.

POWER USERS’ CLINIC THE LITTLE FILTERING
CALENDAR

Some of the column-heading pop-up menus in Details view—”Date

modified,” “Date created,” “Date taken,” and so on—display a calendar,
right there in the menu. You’re supposed to use it to specify a date or a

date range. You use it, for example, if you want to see only the photos
taken last August, or the Word documents created last week. Here’s
how the little calendar works:

































To change the month, click the or buttons to go one month at a
time. Or click the month name to see a list of all 12; click the one you
want.


To change the year, double-click the month’s name. You’re offered a
list of all 10 years in this decade. Double-click on the decade heading to
see a list of decades. (The calendar goes from 1601 to 9999, which

should pretty much cover your digital photo collection.)

To see only the photos taken on a certain date, click the date on the
month-view calendar.

To add photos taken on other dates, click additional squares. You can

also drag to select blocks of consecutive dates.

The checkboxes below the calendar offer one-click access to photos
taken earlier this week, earlier this year, and before the beginning of
this year (“A long time ago”).






Note

Filtering, by the way, can be turned on with sorting or grouping.









































Figure 2-16. You can turn on more than one checkbox. To see only Word and PDF files in this folder,
for example, turn on both checkboxes. In fact, you can turn on checkboxes from more than one
heading—PDF files larger than 8,000 KB, for example.

Once you’ve filtered a window in Details view, you can switch to a
different view; you’ll still see (and not see) the same set of icons. The
address bar reminds you that you’ve turned on filtering; it might say, for

example, Research notes LongTimeAgo DOC file, meaning “ancient

Word files.”

To stop filtering, open the heading drop-down menu again and turn off the
Filter checkbox.



Searching in a File Explorer Window


There’s a search box in the upper-right corner of every File Explorer
window. You can use it to search just within the open window, as described
in the next chapter.




Folder Options

If you want—or need—to tweak your File Explorer windows to a
preposterous degree, there’s a dialog box for that. See the free PDF

appendix to this chapter, “The ‘Folder Options’ Options,” on this book’s
Missing CD at missingmanuals.com.




Taskbar 2.0


For years, the taskbar—the strip of colorful icons at the bottom of your
screen—has been one of the most prominent and important elements of the

Windows interface (Figure 2-17). Today, you can call it Taskbar, Extreme
Makeover Edition; it can do a lot of things it’s never done before.

Here’s an introduction to its functions, old and new:


The Start menu is back. As you know from Chapter 1, the Start

menu is at the far left of the taskbar.

The search box is next. Just to the right of the Start menu, the
search box (labeled “Type here to search”) awaits, as described in

Chapter 3.

Tip

The search box does take up a lot of horizontal space—and you don’t really need it. You can hide
it and still have full access to the search box; see Figure 2-18.




































Figure 2-17. The taskbar offers buttons for every program you’re running—and every program
you’ve pinned there for easy access later.

Cortana. The little circle summons Windows’ voice assistant, as
described in Chapter 5. In the May 2019 Update, it’s no longer

huddled inside the search box.


The Timeline ( ) is like the History menu in a web browser,
except that it lists every window you’ve ever opened, on every
device. See Figure 6-3.


The taskbar lists your open programs and windows. The icons
on the taskbar make it easy to switch from one open program to
another—from your web browser to your email program, for

example—or even to specific windows within those programs.

Note

App icons are generally hidden in Tablet mode, described in Chapter 12. If you read this chapter
and wonder why you’re not seeing some of the things described here, that’s why.





The taskbar is a launcher. You read that right. The taskbar is a
mini–Start menu. It’s a launcher for your favorite programs and

folders, just like the Dock on the Mac or the Quick Launch toolbar
in old Windows versions.


The system tray (notification area) is at the right end. These
icons show you the status of your network connection, battery life,
and so on, as described on “Jump List Settings”.


The Show Desktop button hides at the far-right end. You can
read more about this invisible button on “Background Windows”.


So what can you do with the little buttons on the taskbar? Read on.




Tip

You can operate the taskbar entirely from the keyboard. Press +T to highlight the first button
on it, as indicated by a subtle glow. Then you can “walk” across its buttons by pressing the
left/right arrow keys, or by continuing to press +T (add the Shift key to “walk” in the opposite
direction). Once a button is highlighted, you can tap the space bar to “click” it, press Shift+F10 to
“right-click” it, or press the Menu key on your keyboard to open the icon’s jump list. Who
needs a mouse anymore?

Figure 2-18. Ordinarily, the search box (shown at top) eats up a big chunk of your taskbar. If you’d
rather dedicate that precious real estate to things like your taskbar buttons, then right-click (or hold
your finger down on) a blank spot on the taskbar.

The Search shortcut menu offers three choices for the Search box: “Show search box” (the usual),
“Show search icon” (only a magnifying glass, second from top), and “Hidden” (bottom). Even if you

choose “Hidden,” you can still press the search keystroke, +S.


Taskbar as App Switcher


Every open window is represented by a button—an actual miniature of the
window itself—that sprouts from its program’s taskbar icon. These buttons
make it easy to switch among open programs and windows. Just click one

to bring its associated window into the foreground, even if it’s been
minimized.

Once you know what to look for, you can distinguish an open program from

a closed one, a frontmost window from a background one, and so on (see
Figure 2-17).



Handy Window Miniatures

If you point to a program’s button without clicking, it sprouts thumbnail

images of the windows themselves. Figure 2-17 shows the effect. It’s a lot
more informative than just reading the windows’ names, as in days of yore

(previous Windows versions, that is). The thumbnails are especially good at
helping you spot a particular web page, photo, or PDF document.




Tip
When you point to one of these thumbnails, a tiny Close button ( ) appears in each thumbnail,
too, which makes it easy to close a window without having to bring it forward first. (Or click the
thumbnail itself with your mouse’s scroll wheel, or use your middle mouse button, if you have
one.) Each thumbnail also has a hidden shortcut menu. Right-click to see your options!




Full-Size Peeking


Those window miniatures are all fine, but the taskbar can also show you
full-screen previews of your windows. It’s a feature Microsoft calls Peek.


Mouse/trackpad: Point to a taskbar button to make the window
thumbnails appear. Then, still without clicking, point to one of the
thumbnails.


Touchscreen: Tap an app’s taskbar icon to make the window
thumbnails appear. Now touch the same taskbar icon a second time

and pause; without lifting your fingertip, drag onto one of the
thumbnails.


Windows displays that window at full size, right on the screen, even if it
was minimized, buried, or hidden. Keep moving your cursor or finger
across the thumbnails (if there are more than one); each time you land on a

thumbnail, the full-size window preview changes to show what’s in it.

When you find the window you want, click or tap the thumbnail you’re

already pointing to. The window pops open so you can work in it.


Button Groups


In the old days, opening a lot of windows produced a relatively useless
display of truncated buttons. Not only were the buttons too narrow to read

the names of the windows, but the buttons also appeared in chronological
order, not in software-program order.

As you may have noticed, though, Windows now automatically

consolidates open windows into a single program button. (There’s even a
subtle visual sign that a program has multiple windows open: Its taskbar
icon may appear to be “stacked,” as shown on the Word icon in Figure 2-17,

or its underline may sprout a gray extension.) All the Word documents are
accessible from the Word icon, all the Excel documents sprout from the
Excel icon, and so on.


Point to a taskbar button to see the thumbnails of the corresponding
windows, complete with their names; click to jump directly to the one you
want. (On a touchscreen, tap the taskbar button to see the thumbnails; tap a

thumbnail to open it.)

Despite all the newfangled techniques, some of the following time-honored
basics still apply:


If a program has only one window open, you can hide or show it
by hitting the program’s taskbar button—a great feature that a lot

of PC fans miss. (To hide a background window, select its taskbar
button twice: once to bring the window forward, then a pause, and

then again to hide it.)

To minimize, maximize, restore, or close a window, even if you
can’t see it on the screen, point to its program’s button on the

taskbar. When the window thumbnails pop up, right-click the one
you want, and choose an action from the shortcut menu. (This
option isn’t available without a mouse/trackpad.)

Windows can make all open windows visible at once, either by

cascading them (Figure 2-19), stacking them (horizontal slices), or
displaying them in side-by-side vertical slices. To create this effect,
right-click (or hold your finger down on) a blank spot on the
taskbar and choose “Cascade windows” from the shortcut menu.

Or choose “Show windows stacked” or “Show windows side by
side.”






























Figure 2-19. Cascading windows are neatly arranged so you can see the title bar for each

window. Click any title bar to bring that window to the foreground as the active window.

To hide all open windows in one fell swoop, press +D. Or

right-click a blank spot on the taskbar and choose “Show the
desktop” from the shortcut menu. Or point to (or click) the Show
Desktop rectangle at the far-right end of the taskbar.


To bring the windows back, repeat that step.




Tip
When the taskbar is crowded with buttons, it may not be easy to find a blank spot to click. Usually
there’s a little gap near the right end; you can make it easier to find some blank space by enlarging
the taskbar, as described on “Changing the Taskbar’s Size”.

The Taskbar as App Launcher


Each time you open a program, its icon appears on the taskbar (Figure 2-
20). That’s the way it’s always been. And when you exit that program, its
icon disappears from the taskbar.

These days, however, there’s a twist: You can pin a program’s icon to the

taskbar so it’s always there, even when it’s not open. One quick click opens
the app. The idea, of course, is to put frequently used programs front and

center, always on the screen, so you don’t even have to open the Start menu
to find them.












































Figure 2-20. An icon without a white or colored underline is a program you haven’t opened yet. A
brightened background indicates the active (frontmost) program—Word, in this case.

Right-clicking one of these buttons lets you perform tasks on all the windows together, such as
closing them all at once.

If you prefer the old taskbar, where every window gets a separate button, see “Bring Back the Old
Taskbar,” a free PDF appendix on this book’s “Missing CD” at missingmanuals.com.

GEM IN THE ROUGH SECRET KEYSTROKES OF THE
TASKBAR ICONS

There’s secret keyboard shortcuts lurking in them thar taskbar icons. It

turns out that the first 10 icons, left to right, have built-in keystrokes
that “click” them: the key plus the numbers 1, 2, 3, and so on (up to

0, which means 10).

If you use this keystroke to “click” the icon of a program that’s not
running, it opens up as though you’d clicked it. If you “click” a
program that has only one window open, that window pops to the front.

If you “click” a program with more than one window open, the icon
sprouts thumbnail previews of all of them, and the first window pops to
the front.


Remember that you can drag icons around on the taskbar, in effect
reassigning those 1-through-0 keystrokes.



To pin a program to the taskbar in this way, use one of these tricks:


Drag a program’s icon directly to any spot on the taskbar, as
shown in Figure 2-21. You can drag them from any File Explorer
window or from the desktop.

Figure 2-21. To install a program on your taskbar, drag its icon to any spot; the other
icons scoot aside to make room, if necessary.


Right-click a program’s icon, wherever it happens to be.




Tip

This works even on programs listed on the left side of the Start menu.




From the shortcut menu, choose “Pin to taskbar.” The icon appears

instantly at the right end of the taskbar. You’re welcome to drag it
into a better position.


Right-click an open program’s taskbar icon, wherever it
happens to be. From the shortcut menu, choose “Pin to taskbar.” In

other words, the program’s icon might be on the taskbar now,
because it’s running—but you’ve just told it to stay there even after
you exit it.

Once an icon is on the taskbar, you can open it with a single click. By all

means, stick your favorites there; over the years, you’ll save yourself
thousands of unnecessary Start-menu trips.




Tip
If you Shift-click a taskbar icon, you open another window for that program—for example, a new
browser window, a new Microsoft Word document, and so on. (Clicking with your mouse’s scroll
wheel, or the middle mouse button, does the same thing.) Add the Ctrl key to open the program as
an administrator.
And if you Shift-right-click a taskbar icon, you see the same menu of window-management
commands (Cascade, Restore, and so on) that you get when you right-click a blank spot on the
taskbar.
All these tricks require a mouse or a trackpad.





If you change your mind about a program icon you’ve parked on the
taskbar, it’s easy to move an icon to a new place—just drag it.

You can also remove one altogether. Right-click (or hold your finger down

on) the program’s icon—in the taskbar or anywhere on your PC—and, from
the shortcut menu, choose “Unpin from taskbar.”




Note

The taskbar is really intended to display the icons of programs. If you try to drag a file or a folder
there, you’ll succeed only in adding it to a program’s jump list, as described next. If you want
quick, one-click taskbar access to files, folders, and disks, though, you can have it. See “Taskbar
Toolbars” on the Missing CD at missingmanuals.com.





Jump Lists


Jump lists are handy submenus that list frequently or recently opened files

in each of your programs. For example, the jump list for the Edge browser
shows the websites you visit most often; the jump list for Microsoft Word
shows the documents you’ve edited lately. See Figure 2-22.

The point is that you can reopen a file just by clicking its name. Jump lists

can save you time when you want to resume work on something you had
open recently but you’re not in the mood to burrow through folders to find
its icon.






















































Figure 2-22. Here’s a good example of a taskbar jump list: the one that sprouts from the Edge
browser. It offers a list of websites you’ve visited frequently, and some useful commands for getting
going.

Handily enough, jump lists sprout from apps’ names in the Start menu, too, when you right-click
them.

Often, jump lists also include shortcut-ish commands, like New Message

(for an email program), Play/Pause (for a jukebox program), or “Close all

windows” (for just about any program). As Microsoft puts it, it’s like

having a separate Start menu for every single program.

To make jump lists appear in the taskbar or the Start menu, right-click a
program’s icon. If you’re using a touchscreen computer, just swipe upward
from the program’s taskbar icon. (This second, secret way actually works if

you have a mouse or trackpad, too. Give the mouse a flick upward while
you’re clicking.) In Figure 2-22, for example, you can see that Microsoft
Edge’s jump list includes web pages you’ve recently visited and recently

closed.



Pinning to Jump Lists

In general, jump lists maintain themselves. Windows decides which files

you’ve opened or played most recently or most frequently and builds the
jump lists accordingly. New document listings appear, older ones vanish, all
without your help.


But you can also install files manually into a program’s jump list—in
Windows-ese, you can pin a document to a program’s jump list so it’s not
susceptible to replacement by other items.


For example, you might pin the chapters of a book you’re working on to
your Word jump list. To the File Explorer jump list, you might pin the
folder and disk locations you access often.


You can pin a file or folder to a taskbar jump list in any of four ways:

From the Start menu: Find an app or document in the programs

list of the Start menu. Right-click (or hold your finger down on) its
name; from the shortcut menu, choose More →“Pin to taskbar.”


From the desktop or a File Explorer window: Drag a document
(or its file shortcut) directly onto a blank spot on the taskbar. (You
can drag it onto its “parent” program’s icon if you really want to,

but the taskbar itself is a bigger target.)