If you find you can’t copy or move a file or folder, especially one on a network drive, you probably don’t have the necessary permission. Because moving a file involves deleting its original from the folder it’s in, you need permission to change a folder in order to move a file from it. You may be able to create a copy instead, because copying doesn’t involve deleting the original. Likewise, you need permission to create a file in the destination folder; if you don’t have this permission, neither moving nor copying will work.

Deleting a File or Folder

Deleting a file or folder is easy once you understand the two-stage process that Windows uses to help prevent you from deleting any files or folders unintentionally. Windows has a holding area called the Recycle Bin for files or folders that you’ve deleted. If you’re familiar with Mac OS, you’ll find similarities between the Recycle Bin and the Trash. When you tell Windows to delete a file or folder that’s stored on a local drive, Windows confirms that you’re sure about the deletion, and then moves the file or folder from its current folder to the Recycle Bin. When a file or folder is in the Recycle Bin, it hasn’t been deleted yet, and you can retrieve it easily. Windows calls this restoring a file or folder - restoring it from the Recycle Bin to its previous folder. Files or folders stay in the Recycle Bin until either you empty it or the Recycle Bin grows to occupy its full allocation of disk space, at which point Windows starts discarding the oldest files or folders in the Recycle Bin without consultation to make space for further files or folders you delete. When you tell Windows to delete a file or folder on a network drive, Windows deletes it imme- diately without moving the file to the Recycle Bin. Unless you work strictly with files or folders on local drives, it’s a bad idea to rely on the Recycle Bin to rescue you from careless Delete operations. If you want, you can turn off the confirmation of deletion, and you can stop Windows from using the Recycle Bin. That way, when you delete a file or folder, it’s deleted instantly without confirmation, and there’s no easy way of restoring it. You can sometimes restore deleted files or folders with third-party undelete utilities, but you shouldn’t rely on being able to do so.

Moving a File or Folder to the Recycle Bin

To move a file or folder to the Recycle Bin, take any of the following actions:

•    Select the file or folder, and then press the Delete key.

•    Right-click the file or folder, and then choose Delete from the context menu.

•    Select the file in an Windows Explorer window, and then choose Organize   Delete.

•    Select the file or folder, and then drag it to the Recycle Bin on the Desktop.

Once you’ve issued a Delete command, Windows displays the Delete File dialog box, shown here, or the Delete Folder dialog box which is similar.

Click the Yes button if you’re sure you want to send the file to the Recycle Bin. If you accidentally delete a file or folder in an Windows Explorer window, you can recover it by choosing Organize Undo Delete or by pressing Ctrl+Z before taking any other actions in Windows Explorer.

Deleting a File or Folder without Moving It to the Recycle Bin

To delete a file or folder without moving it to the Recycle Bin, hold down the Shift key as you issue the Delete command:

•    Select the file or folder, hold down the Shift key, and then press the Delete key.

•    Right-click the file or folder, hold down the Shift key, and choose the Delete item on the context menu.

•    Select the file or folder in an Windows Explorer window, hold down the Shift key, click the Organize button, and then click Delete.

Windows displays the Delete File dialog box shown here or the Delete Folder dialog box with different wording. Click the Yes button to delete the file or folder.

Recovering a File or Folder from the Recycle Bin

To recover a file or folder from the Recycle Bin, follow these steps:

1.  Double-click the Recycle Bin icon on the Desktop. Windows opens a Recycle Bin window.

2.  Click the file or folder you want to restore.

3.  Click the Restore This Item button on the toolbar. To restore all items, select no item, and then click the Restore All Items button on the toolbar. Windows restores the item to its previous folder.

If you’ve created another file with the same name in the folder the file to be restored previously occupied, Windows displays the Move File dialog box  to let you decide whether to overwrite the newer file with the one you’re restoring. If you restore a folder from the Recycle Bin after you’ve created another folder with the same name in the folder into which it’ll return, Windows displays the Confirm Folder Replace dialog box , which lets you choose whether to merge the folder you’re restoring with the exist- ing folder. If any of the files you’re restoring have the same names as files in the folder, you can choose whether to replace the existing files. Click the Yes button to merge the folders.

File Deletion and Restoration

Each file is stored in a number of clusters on your hard disk. The file system - NTFS or FAT - maintains an allocation table of which sectors each file is stored in. When a program goes to open a file, Windows gets from the file system the location of the clusters that contain the file and instructs the hard disk to retrieve the information. These clusters may be located pretty much anywhere on the disk partition that contains the drive. If they’re located near each other, the hard disk can retrieve them faster, but if your drive is fragmented, they may be scattered all over the disk. Either way, the file system assembles the data they contain so that Windows can present them as a single file in the correct order.

When you delete a file when you perform a real Delete operation, that is - not when you put a file in the Recycle Bin, Windows tells the file system to get rid of the file. The file system does so by deleting the entry that tells it where the clusters containing the file are located. The clusters that the file is actually stored in remain intact but are marked as being available for storing data, so they may be overwritten by another Save operation at any point.

This method of deletion is why some undelete utilities can recover files that have been “deleted” by the operating system. Before the clusters containing the file have been overwritten, the information can be reassembled by synthesizing the entry in the allocation table. This may not work perfectly - often, the result is a bit rough - but it works surprisingly often. After the clusters containing the file have been overwritten, it’s much harder to restore the file - but specialists can usually do it.

If you want to be sure that nobody can easily restore the files you delete, get a shredder utility that overwrites the clusters in which the file’s data is stored as soon as you delete the file. Norton’s WipeInfo comes highly recommended. But if you want to be entirely sure that nobody will ever be able to read the data on your hard disk again, destroy the hard disk. A sledgehammer, an oxy-acetylene lamp, or strong acid might be needed.

Emptying the Recycle Bin

Under normal usage, your Recycle Bin gradually fills up with files and folders you delete. Windows lets the Recycle Bin fill, and then automatically deletes the oldest files or folders in it when it needs space for newer files or folders you delete, so you don’t need to empty the Recycle Bin. But for security, it’s a good idea to clear out old files you wouldn’t want others to see. So every now and then, visit the Recycle Bin, look through it, restore any files or folders you want to keep, and empty out the rest. To empty the Recycle Bin, follow these steps:

1.  Double-click the Recycle Bin icon on your Desktop. Windows opens the Recycle Bin window.

2.  Restore any files or folders you want to keep.

3.  Click the Empty the Recycle Bin button on the toolbar. Windows displays the Delete Multiple Items dialog box, shown here.

4.  Click the Yes button. Windows deletes the files from the Recycle Bin.

Quickly Empty the Recycle Bin

To empty the Recycle Bin quickly without checking its contents, follow these steps:

1.   Right-click the Recycle Bin icon on your Desktop, and then choose Empty Recycle Bin from the context menu. Windows displays the Delete Multiple Items dialog box.

2.   Click the Yes button.

Customizing the Recycle Bin

The Recycle Bin’s standard behavior works well for many people, but you can change the way the Recycle Bin behaves:

•    You can make Windows delete items immediately without using the Recycle Bin.

•    You can turn off confirmation of deletion, so that files go directly to the Recycle Bin if you’re using it or to oblivion.

•    You can change the amount of space set aside for the Recycle Bin. To customize the Recycle Bin, follow these steps:

1.  Right-click the Recycle Bin icon on your Desktop, and then choose Properties from the context menu. Windows displays the Recycle Bin Properties dialog box .

2.  In the Recycle Bin Location list box, select the drive you want to affect. You can choose different settings for each hard drive.

3.  In the Settings for Selected Location group box, select the “Do Not Move Files to the Recycle Bin. Remove Files Immediately When Deleted” option button if you want to stop using the Recycle Bin for this drive. Otherwise, leave the Custom Size option button selected, and change the size in the Maximum Size box if necessary. For example, you might want to reduce the amount of space that the Recycle Bin can take up.

4.  If you want to turn off confirmation of deletion, clear the Display Delete Confirmation Dialog check box. This setting affects all drives at once:

you can’t choose different confirmation settings for different drives. If you chose in the previous step to stop using the Recycle Bin for a drive, clearing this check box as well means that items you delete get deleted permanently without confirmation.

5.  Click the OK button. Windows closes the Recycle Bin Properties dialog box.

Performing File Operations in Common Dialog Boxes

You can perform file operations such as Copy, Paste, Rename, and Delete in many common dialog boxes used by Windows programs. Just right-click the listing for a file to display a context menu of the actions you can take, as in the illustration below. Doing this can save you time because you don’t need to open an Windows Explorer window. For example, say you’re working in Word and you need to save the active document under a name that another document in the same folder already has without overwriting that document. Instead of opening an Windows Explorer window, you can right-click the filename, choose Rename to display an edit box, and rename it there.

Renaming a File or Folder

To rename a file or folder, follow these steps:

1.  Open an edit box for the file’s name by taking one of these actions:

•    Right-click the file or folder, and then choose Rename from the context menu.

•    Click the file or folder, and then choose Organize   Rename.

•    Click the file’s or folder’s name, wait a moment, and then click again.

2.  Type the name in the edit box, and then press Enter or click in open space outside the edit box.

Renaming Multiple Files or Folders at Once

Windows lets you rename multiple files or folders at the same time by selecting the files, pressing the F2 key, entering the base filename, and then pressing Enter, but the feature is useful only in certain specialized circumstances that seldom occur in real life. Because the renamed files or folders can’t have the same name as each other, Windows adds ascending numbers in parentheses to all files after the first:

1, 2, and so on. So if you rename the files Letter  to Jane.doc, Letter  to  Fred.doc, and Letter  to  the  Bank.doc with the name Correspondence, the files receive the filenames Correspondence.doc, Correspondence 1.doc, and Correspondence 2.doc. Counterintuitively, it’s the last file in the selection that gets the unadorned name, because this is the file for which Windows displays the edit box when you press the F2 key. The first file in the selection gets the 1 name, the second the 2 name, and so on. If the files you’re renaming have different extensions, Windows preserves those extensions - even if you have file extensions displayed in Windows Explorer and you specify the extension for the file around which the edit box is displayed.

Viewing, Setting, and Removing Properties for a File or Folder

As you’ll remember from earlier in the article, files and folders are objects, and objects have properties. To view the properties for a file or folder, right-click it and choose Properties from the context menu. Alternatively, select it and choose Organize   Properties. Windows displays the Properties dialog box for the file or folder.

The General page shows the following information:

•    File name in the title bar and in the text box at the top.

•    File type - for instance, Microsoft Office Word Document .docx.

•    Program set to open the file - for example, Microsoft Office Word. You can change the associated program by clicking the Change button. Article 9 discusses the implications of doing so.

•    Location the folder that contains the file.

•    The size and size on disk. The size on disk may be different if the drive uses compression.

•    The dates on which the file was created, last modified, and last accessed.

•    The Read-Only status, which controls whether users can only view the file or can save changes to it. You can select or clear this check box.

•    The Hidden status, which controls whether Windows displays the file when Windows Explorer is set to hide hidden files. You can select or clear this check box.

You can set advanced attributes for the file or folder by clicking the Advanced button and then working in the Advanced Attributes dialog box that Windows displays. Article 9 discusses these options. The Details page of the Properties dialog box contains information about the file or folder. Fig- ure 5.20 shows two examples. Depending on the file type, you may be able to edit some of the properties. When you’re planning to distribute a file, you may want to remove certain properties from it so that people who receive the file can’t view potentially sensitive information. You can either remove roperties from the file itself or create a copy without those properties, leaving the original file with its properties intact. To remove properties, follow these steps:

1.  Click the Remove Properties and Personal Information link on the Details page. Windows displays the Remove Properties dialog box .

2.  Choose whether to make a copy or remove properties from the original file:

•    To make a copy, select the Create a Copy with All Possible Properties Removed option button.

•    To remove properties from the original file, select the Remove the Following Properties from This File option button. You can then click the Select All button to select the check box for each removable property or select the check boxes individually.

3.  Click the OK button. Windows closes the dialog box, removes the properties, and returns you to the Properties dialog box. If you chose to create a copy, Windows creates a new file named with the original filename and –  Copy. For example, the copy of Lake.wmv is named Lake  –  Copy.wmv. When you’ve finished examining or changing properties, click the OK button. Windows closes the Properties dialog box.