Using Libraries in Windows Seven

Windows 7 has a cool feature that allows you to organize files from different locations on your hard drive within one place called libraries.  I never fully took advantage of this feature until today.  Libraries, and actual folders on your hard drive, are two different things.  Libraries do offer an easy way to categorize your files, so that you aren’t using Windows Search, or a third party application, to search your hard drive.  

The best way to think of libraries is that they are a database that you can use to reference files.  Today I decided I wanted to use Google Music to back up my music files again.  The default for Google Music, is to upload files from the My Music library on my computer.  I do have files in My Music, but I also have files in Downloads.

I went into the file explorer by clicking the folder icon on the taskbar.  Then I found the folder I wanted to include in the library.  The easiest way to add a folder to a library, is to actually click the “Include In Library” option up at the top of the file explorer and choose which library to add it to.  You can drag and drop the entire folder, but you risk the possibility that you will physically move the folder, which is what you don’t want to do.

I then went back to the Music library on the list on the left hand side of the file explorer.  I can now see that the Downloads folder is listed in the Music library, but it is not listed in the My Music folder within the Music library, which is what I want.  This is where you have to physically drag Downloads from within Music, and put it within My Music.  It looks as though you are physically dragging the actual Downloads folder, but aren’t, you are dragging a database within one part of the library to another.

I clicked on the Downloads folder located within the profile Windows created for me when I set up the computer.  If you aren’t sure where that is at, it will be computerlocal diskusersuser namedownloads.  It can take several minutes to do this, depending on how many files you have in the Downloads folder.  

You might never use libraries in Windows 7, but your applications will.  Once the computer finishes the task, you can then go back and click on your library.  You should see three locations instead of two.  What happened in my case, is that Downloads became a library within the Music library, and a library within My Music within Music.  So the same archive is being referenced multiple times.

Libraries may take some getting used to.  But once you do, and gain a better understanding of the direction Microsoft is going with Windows, you will be able to fully appreciate all that Windows has to offer.  There are a lot of hidden features within Windows, you just have to know where to find them …