Full disclosure of Windows system folders

Friends we use Windows every day, but are you familiar with its system folders? The following article describes the role of various Windows operating system folders.

System Folder detailed win9x/me Chapter

It is said that Windows9x still has many users, while Windows Me and windows9x are similar. This will take you to the main Windows 9x/me system folder and see them in a transparent.

First need to clear a concept, "System Folder" refers to the main files of the operating system folder, generally in the installation of the operating system automatically created and the relevant files in the corresponding folder, which directly affect the system's normal operation, most of them do not allow arbitrary changes.

Command

The folder has many external command programs under DOS that can be useful for system crashes, such as the Bootdisk.bat file for creating a boot disk on a DOS command line.

Cookies

Cookies folder, which contains some personal data, such as user names, URLs, and so on, that are created by the site on your hard drive when users browse certain websites.

Desktop

Desktop folder, files stored in that folder are displayed directly on the desktop.

Downloaded program Files

The folder where IE downloads files are stored. It contains the files needed to display a Web page that has been opened (most files are used to run animations on a Web page). Note: This is not the folder you need to place the downloaded software.

Favorites

Favorites folder. In IE, we "add a page to Favorites", in fact, the shortcut to the page is stored under the folder, of course, you can also create more folders under the file, in order to store the favorite categories.

Fonts

Font folder. All the fonts that are used in the system are stored here, so adding a new font can be done in addition to the "Install new font" entry in the font window of the Control Panel, which allows you to copy the font files directly here, as well as delete some of the infrequently used font files ( Note, however, that the screen font with the extension. fon should not be deleted in order to prevent the system from appearing properly.

Help

The storage folder for the Help file. It includes a lot of very detailed help files, you can see these help files, they will be a lot of help to users.

History

History folder. When you browse a webpage in IE, ie defaults to creating a history information to store here. If you don't want others to know your browsing whereabouts, you can delete the contents of this folder.

Offline Web Pages

The location where the offline browsing files are stored. When a site is set up to allow offline use, the corresponding file is generated in that folder.

Recent

A folder that records the most recently opened documents. The content corresponds to the contents of the documents item in the Start menu, so you can remove the shortcuts in the folder by deleting the recently opened document records.

Start Menu

Start Menu folder. The items correspond to the program items in the Start menu, where you can adjust the Start menu items (such as add, delete, reclassify, and so on).

Sysbckup

This folder is used to store the system's backup information for the registry and system files.

System

This is the system folder, storage of the system important files (such as DLL files, etc.), some software will also copy files to the folder during installation, so as the installed software increases, the contents of this folder will be more and more. Files in this folder are generally not easily deleted, or they can cause system errors.

System32

32-bit system folders, which have many virtual device files (with the extension VxD), can cause system errors or even crashes if you delete them arbitrarily.

Temp

Temporary folder that holds temporary files that are generated when the system is running. The files usually need to be cleaned manually.

Temporary Internet Files

temporary folder for IE. This folder contains some of the content generated when IE browses the Web page, which is read from here when the same page is opened again to speed up browsing. Therefore, increasing the space for the temporary folder appropriately will make browsing faster (set in Internet Options in Control Panel).

System Folder detailed WIN2000/XP Chapter

Now that you're done with Win98/me's system folder, then talk about the popular WIN2000/XP system folder. After the system installation is complete, three folders are generated by default: "WinNT" (Windows for XP), "Documents and Settings", and "program Files". Many folders in the System installation directory (Winnt or Windows) have the same effect as windows9x/me. Since many of the system's required files are stored under documents and Settings, we also introduce it as a system folder. As with "win9x/me", we are still only introducing important common folders.

1. Folders different from win9x/me in the installation directory

The role of the same folder as Win9x/me in the previous article I have already mentioned, here no longer repeat. Only folders that are different from win9x/me are described here.

Connection Wizard: Stores files used by the Internet Connection Wizard.

Driver Cache: This folder will generally also have a i386 folder, which will be used to store the driver compressed files (the file is typically a few 10 trillion).

IME: Input method information is stored in this folder.

Prefetch: Pre-read folder. To speed up file access, pre-read technology is used in WinXP, which generates new information (files with a pf extension) in the files that are accessed.

Repair: The first time you install WIN2000/XP, the system automatically saves Autoexec.bat,config.sys and other related system files here.

Resources: A folder that holds related desktop themes.

System and System32: Although these two folders are also available in win9x/me, almost all system files in WIN2000/XP are placed under System32, while system stores only some 16-bit drivers and some shared runtime libraries for some software.

Temp: This folder has basically no effect in WIN2000/XP because each user has his or her own ad hoc folder (under Documents and Settings, see the introduction below).

2. "Documents and Settings" folder

By default, this folder will have administrator, all users, Default user, LocalService, NetworkService, and folders created with different user names (if there are multiple users in the system). In addition to LocalService, NETWORKSERVICEVIWL, which are created by the service Management program in WinXP, are available to those programs that serve as services. If you install Foxmail server to build a mail server, these two folders are system-required, do not arbitrarily modify (default is the implied property). Others configure folders for the user, and the folder structure is roughly the same.

1) Take "All users" as an example to explain the main content of the user profile (some of the folders mentioned below may be implied properties that need to be set to show all files before they can be seen):

①application Data: The Universal Application Files folder. This is where the dedicated data for some of the installed applications is stored, which is generated automatically when the software is installed. For example, under the Application Data folder of all users, you might have a Microsoftwordstartup folder (if you have Office installed, this is the document you want to open automatically when Word starts).

② Start Menu folder: Holds some of the program groups and shortcuts in the Start menu.

③ Desktop folder: Some of the desktop items that are part of the logged-on user.

Bean tip: A user's Start menu, items on the desktop include the two folders below the corresponding User name folder, and the contents of both folders under all users.

④templates: Template folder, which may have template files for Word, Excel, etc., is a reference template for selecting "New" When you right-click.

⑤ Shared Documents: Of course, it is the place where you allow shared stuff. There are two folders for "shared images" and "Shared music" below.

2) for different users, under the User name folder will also have:

Local Settings: Is the "Home Settings" folder, which holds the application's data, history, and temporary folders, such as historical, temp, and temporary Internet files (in the same role as the win9x/me).

Application Data: The contents of the Application Data folder under different user folders are also different, such as application Datamicrosoftinternet Explorerquick launch store "Start" The shortcut in the Quick Launch toolbar on the right side of the menu, Application datamicrosoftaddress book is the OE phonebook, and so on.

In addition, the user folder also has NetHood, PrintHood, Sendto, Favorites, desktop and other folders.

3) If you are on a LAN, when you log into the system with an account that belongs to a domain or workgroup, there will be "all Users.windows" (for WinXP) or "All Users.winnt" (for Win2000) in "Documents and Settings" folder, and if you reinstall the system with overwrite and set the same user name as before during Setup, when Setup creates the user information, it finds that a folder with the same name already exists, and the user name. Computer name is automatically used to create a new User Configuration information folder.

There will also be some files required for the system to run under Program Files (Application folder). For each installation of the system after the software installed, the contents of the folder will be very different, there will be "Common files" (store the common library files used by the software), "Internet Explorer" (ie browser is not in the installation directory yo), "Windows Media Player, etc., is not detailed here.

Okay, so I'll talk about this, and the little article wants to be helpful to everyone who knows windows.