Creating a folder for class files on a PC Personal Computer

(Macintosh users, create a folder in any location on your computer that you find convenient).

Note: the screen shots below may not exactly resemble what you see on your computer.

PC users, use either your Windows Explorer or a command line to create a new folder. If you use Windows Explorer, you will follow steps similar (not necessarily identical) to these shown here:

  1. Using Windows Explorer , open or explore "My Computer".
  2. If you already have a folder C:\temp, select this folder and choose File, New, Folder, name the new folder als3203 (case does not matter for this exercise).
  3. To be sure you are making a folder under C:\temp, you will see this in your Windows Explorer address- .
  4. If you do not have a folder "Temp", then create one. Select C:, then File, new Folder, name it Temp.
  5. Once you have created C:\temp, select Temp and choose File, New, Folder, name the new folder als3203
  6. If you have done things correctly, you will now have a folder whose address will be C:\temp\als3203, which will look like this in Windows Explorer. From this point on in the course you are to place copies of everything you send to me into this folder. From time to time I will ask you to send me a directory listing of this folder. .
  7. If you use a command line to accomplish this, you will use the following commands:
    • dir - list directories
    • cd - change directory
    • md - make directory
    To access a command line you can choose "Command prompt" under Start, Programs, or choose Start, Run, type in "command", and you should get a command line window. Ot there is a Command icon in the program list in Windows XP.
  8. Your prompt will vary but will be in the format of C:\directory\subdirectory\...
  9. To get to the root of your hard disk, type cd\ (that is a backslash)at the prompt. You will be at the root directory of your computer and your prompt will now be C:\
  10. To see if you have a folder c:\temp you can type cd temp (that's cd with a space before temp). If you already have a folder C:\temp your prompt will now be c:\temp. If you do not you will get a message of file not found. If this is the case, type the following to create a folder temp.
    md temp

    This means make directory (md) called temp. Since you are logged onto C:\, the folder (directory) will be created under C:\.
  11. Now that you have a folder C:\temp, all that is left to do is to create another folder als3203 under C:\temp
  12. This is done with your prompt C:\temp>, type md als3203
  13. Now you will have a folder als3203 under C:\temp. Here are command line views of the steps you might use:
    • make a folder als3203 under C:\temp
    • change (cd)to als3203 folder under C:\temp
    • make folder "test" under als3203
    • directory listing of \test
    • Closing command window with "exit" command
  14. Either way will work (using Windows Explorer or a command line). In the not to distant future I will ask you to send me a file listing of your als3203 folder and you will want to know how to do this from a command line since you cannot do this in Windows Explorer.

Back to lesson 1