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Windows 2000 Secrets: Windows Explorer

Tired of looking at the My Documents folder every time you open Windows Explorer? Here, Dave Cook explains how you can change the default view to practically anything you wish.

Windows 2000 Explorer lets you perform a whole range of tasks. Using Explorer you can copy, move, and delete files; personalise the appearance of your folders; search for people, computers, and files; view a history of your most recently accessed Web pages, plus a whole lot more besides.

Finding Information

For example, a new whiz-bang search feature called the Indexing Service is worth a mention – although it may not be for everyone. Once enabled, the Indexing Service can quickly extract information from a variety of documents. It can find text from within almost any self-contained piece of work created with an application program, or it can display a document’s properties, such as the author’s name.

The Indexing Service works by storing all of its indexes in catalogues. Indexing is performed only when the computer is standing idle. However, rather like the notorious Fast Find of old, be warned that you’ll need a fairly powerful system to get the most out of the service. If it turns out that your computer is not quite up to indexing via the default settings, it’s a fairly simple matter to adjust the amount of resources that are devoted to both indexing and the process of querying catalogues.  

The Indexing Service can be enabled as follows:

• Open Windows Explorer and click Search.

• In the Search Options box, click the Indexing Service link.

• Follow the onscreen instructions.

Once configured, all operations are automatic. This includes index creation, index updating, and crash recovery capability in the event of a power failure.

Change That View

Windows Explorer can be a great time saver. But one feature in particular is proving to be not such a good idea. The culprit, of course, is the My Documents folder, which is shown by default upon the launch of Explorer. 

Microsoft made this the default option based on the assumption that most of us work with documents more than with any other type of files. This is more than probably true, but equally there are many users out there who might not wish to see the contents of the My Documents folder every time they open Windows Explorer. If that applies to you, then pointing Explorer to open in a different folder or directory makes far more sense.

To configure Explorer to show at launch, for example, the computer’s main drive along with the folders bar, right-click on the Windows Explorer shortcut we showed you how to create in Windows 2000 Secrets (2): Windows Explorer, and select Properties. This opens the Explorer Properties windows. From the Shortcut tab, go to the Target box, and after EXPLORER.EXE, add a space and then add /E to the target path. Click OK to apply the change.

When launched, Explorer will now default to the contents of the main directory of the Windows 2000 drive, with the folders bar visible on the left. To view the main drive without folder bars, in the Target box, add /N to the target path instead of /E. Alternatively, to view the contents of My Computer with a drive selected and the folders bar showing, in the Target box, after EXPLORER.EXE add a space and then type /SELECT,/E,DRIVE:\ where “DRIVE” is the preferred drive; for example, C, D, E, or F.

Finally

We’ve covered only a few of the ways in which the Windows 2000 version of Explorer can be improved upon. There are countless others, so don’t be afraid to delve into Windows Explorer still further. After all, Microsoft didn’t name it “Explorer” without good reason!