Your computer is an organized system of files and folders. Folders are considered to be a collection of files that have some common purpose or relationship. Files can contain your information, your stuff or programs that you purchase and install for various purposes.

The program files work with your stuff, your information, to create letters, calendars, photos, checking accounts, address books, and all the other things you can come up with using your computer.

If you use MY COMPUTER to view a listing of the files in your computer, you can arrange them by name, type, size or date.  File names consist of a descriptive name, followed by a period, followed by a 3-character suffix called the file extension.  Arranging by type sorts the files by the 3 letter extension of the file name. Organizing and manipulating by file type is a powerful tool in file management.

This file name- period-file extension concept is called the 8.3 file name system.

In the days before Windows, the descriptive name was limited to 8 characters (letters,numbers and a few special symbols) and no spaces. Windows 95 added a feature called long file names, which allows for descriptive names to be up to 255 characters in length. Even with the addition of long file names, an understanding of the old 8.3 system can help you manage, understand and work with your files in new and powerful ways.

Changing Windows Point of View-- a powerful way to see your system in a whole new light.

You can actually see the full name of each of your files by changing the view of files.  The initial display of files in  My Computer displays only a large icon.  By adjusting what I call Windows Point of View, you can actually see detailed information about each file including:

• the full file name in its 8.3 file format

• the size in bytes, kilobytes, or megabytes

• the type of file listed (and hopefully its associated program)

• the date the file was last modified

• whether a file is an individual file or a grouping of files called a folder

Changing and adjusting Windows Point of View is a powerful tool that you can use regularly to really understand and manage the stuff in your computer.

File Associations

Windows uses the 3-character extension to associate files with programs. This association allows Windows to start a program just by knowing its extension. If a file name is letter.doc, Windows recognizes the DOC to be an MS Word document and it knows to start the Word program in order to use this file

Similarly, if a file name is XLS, Windows will see this as a Microsoft Excel file and starts Excel automatically. If a file name is WPD, this usually refers to a WordPerfect document and theWordperfect program should start.

The examples can go and on for most every type of file that exists.

Wild Cards

Another useful tool in managing files is to use wild card characters. A wild card in a poker game can represent any other card in the deck. Similarly, a wild card character can represent any character in a file name or file extension. Your computer uses the asterisk (*) and question mark (?) characters as a wild cards.

The find file utility can take advantage of these wild cards.

Start Find File utility

• Click on Start

• Find

• Files or Folders

Make sure that the Look in box refers to C and that the include subfolders is checked on.

• In the Names box type in *.doc

• Click on Find Now

This will bring up a list of all files with the extension of doc. Notice that the asterisk is used as a wild card to represent all files.

Click on any file name.

MS Word should start and bring up the file you selected

You can substitute the doc with any other 3-letter file extension of your choice.

In the names box type in *.htm

This will bring up a list of all files with the extension of htm. Htm refers to Hypertext Markup Language, which is the format for many Internet web pages

Click on any file name

Your Internet browser program should start and view the file you have selected.

The question mark (?) wild card character substitutes for just one character within a file name.

By using the 3-character file extension you can locate, view, move or delete files in larger groups much more efficiently than by selecting each individual file. You should also have a better understanding of the 8.3 file naming system.

http://filext.com/extinfo.php and at File Format Listings