Find lost and misplaced files on your PC

Basic filing tips

How to file a new document in a new folder 

Press the Windows key and E to launch Windows Explorer

• Click on the 'My Documents' folder

• Right-click with your mouse and click New > Folder

• Give your new folder a name, for example ‘Personal’

• To save a document to this folder click File > Save As

• Click My Documents, click on the Personal folder icon > Save

Searching Vista

To search for a file when using Windows Vista, click 'Start' and enter text in the 'Instant Search' box. As you type, relevant files and applications appear automatically (see right). 

Alternatively, click on Pictures, Documents or Music and a window will open where you can search for particular file types. 

'Instant Search' works in the same way, but in the case of pictures you can browse the corresponding thumbnails. 

Advanced Vista searching

For a more detailed search: Click the Vista 'Start' icon (you'll find it at the bottom left-hand side of the screen) > Search > Advanced Search. Then you can search by size, date modified or even by tags you’ve added to pictures.

Searching Windows XP

The easiest way to explore your folders is to use Windows Explorer (hold down the Windows key and E at the same time). Click on the various folders to view their contents. That’s great if you have an inkling of where the file you're looking for is stored. 

However, it isn't so straightforward if you've misfiled something. That’s when Windows’ search function can help. 

To access this in Windows XP click on Search at the top of the Windows Explorer window. Or, from the Start button, click 'Search'.

Choose the type of file you want to search for, then enter the name or part name of the document you're looking for in the box titled ‘All or part of the file name’ and then click Search. 

You can also search for a file by looking for a word or phrase within it. This will take longer than searching by file name. To access this feature click 'Use advanced search options'.

Last modified

Another search option allows you to narrow your search by selecting the size of the file or the last time you altered it. 

To access this in Windows XP, click ‘When was it modified?’ or ‘What size is it?’ (within Advanced options). Then select an option from the dropdown menu that appears.

Searching for particular file types

To search for specific file types you can use a wildcard asterisk (*). Each file type has a corresponding file extension – for example a Word document will have either a .doc or. docx (if you’re using Office 2007) extension. 

If you want to bring up a list of all the Word documents that have file names ending in 2007, you would type *2007.doc into the search field. 

Finding your music

The default location for any music you download or copy onto your computer is the ‘My Music’ folder found in My Computer > My Documents > My Music.

But how do you find your music from other applications such as iTunes? iTunes uses its own music management software and music player, so when you download a song you will immediately see it in your iTunes library. 

Alternatively, you can also find it in your 'My Music' folder in a folder automatically created by the iTunes software. 

If you buy your music from an online music store like Woolworths or Tesco then downloads will usually be saved to the 'My Music' folder. When you double click on the file it will open up and play on your default media player (Windows Media Player, say).

Finding your pictures

In most cases, pictures are saved by default to the ‘My Pictures’ folder. 

To locate this click My Computer > My Documents > My Pictures.

When you go to save a picture Windows automatically recognises it as such and the window that appears will automatically prompt you to save it to the 'My Pictures' folder. However, this isn’t always the case.

Finding pictures in Vista

Vista lets you assign tags (key words) to pictures to help you find and identify them later.

Tagging a picture with the words ‘beach’ and ‘Malta’ for example, means any search for these words will bring up that picture. 

To tag a picture, double-click the photo in the main window, click the Info button on the top toolbar > Add tags. Separate each word with a forward slash (/).