Page 209 - Windows 10 May 2019 Update The Missing Manual: The Book That Should Have Been in the Box

If you double-click the Local Disk (C:) icon in This PC—that is, your

primary hard drive—you’ll find an assortment of folders that you, the
human, aren’t supposed to fiddle with. Three are worth knowing about:

Program Files is where Windows stores all your desktop programs
—Word, Excel, games, and so on.

Of course, a Windows program isn’t a single, self-contained icon.

Instead, it’s usually a folder, housing both the program and its
phalanx of support files and folders. The actual application icon
generally can’t even run if it’s separated from its support group.

Users. Windows’ accounts feature is ideal for situations where
different family members, students, or workers use the same
machine at different times. Each account holder will turn on the

machine to find her own separate, secure set of files, folders,
desktop pictures, web bookmarks, font collections, and preference

settings. (Much more about this feature in Chapter 18.)

In any case, now you should see the importance of the Users
folder. Inside is one folder—one personal folder—for each person

who has an account on this PC. In general, Standard account–
holders (“Adding an Account”) aren’t allowed to open anybody
else’s folder.

Note

Inside the Documents library, you’ll see Public Documents; in the Music library, you’ll see Public
Music; and so on. These are nothing more than pointers to the master Public folder that you can
also see here, in the Users folder. (Anything you put into a Public folder is available for inspection
by anyone else with an account on your PC, or even other people on your network.)

Windows. Here’s a folder Microsoft hopes you’ll just ignore. This

most hallowed folder contains the thousands of little files that
make Windows, well, Windows. Most of these folders and files

have cryptic names that appeal to cryptic people.