Master the basics of Microsoft Windows 7 and find out what's new in the latest version of Windows. Windows 7 tutorial 5 - Organizing files and folders using the context menu

In Windows 7 tutorial 5, we'll be using the context menu to move and copy files and folders. The context menu appears when you right click and as its name suggests, it changes depending on what context or situation it appears under.

When you have completed this tutorial, you should be confident with copying and moving files and folders around your PC and understand how to create your own folders and organize content on your machine.

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Additional notes

What is a zip file? - A zip file behaves similarly to a folder in that it can contain multiple files and folders. Usually, data is packed into a zip file archive for transportation. Files in a zip archive are compressed using clever mathematical algorithms which makes zip files ideal for transporting files across the internet. You can learn more about zip files by checking our working with files tutorial.

You can't have more than one file or folder with the same name in a folder - Windows needs to tell files apart just the same as you do, so you can't have two files with the same name in the same folder.

If you try and put a folder with the same name as an existing one into the same folder, the contents of the folders will be merged. Any files which exist inside both folders will be overwritten. If a file is in the source folder but not in the destination folder, it will be moved to the destination. If a file is in the destination folder but not the source folder, it will be left alone. See the pictures below for an example:-

Above:- Two folders prior to being merged.

Above:- The resulting folder contents following the merge.

File1.txt and File2.txt are unchanged. File3.txt (shown in red in the picture above) was overwritten, because it existed in both the source and the destination folders. File4.txt (shown in green in the picture above) was moved in, because it existed in the source but NOT in the destination.

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