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Where is the “Move focus UP” function in W7?


scott14

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I’m a new user of Windows 7 Pro.

In Windows XP I relied a lot on the upward pointing icon that’d move your focus up one level in the file directory structure. How do you move focus “up” one level in W7? The intuitive, user-friendly up-pointing icon in Win XP is gone in my installation of W7 Pro.

Say for example you have separate folders for each country, each containing files called by a database, which amounts to around 200 folders, all sitting at the same level, several levels down in your file directory tree.

You save a file in the Argentina folder, and then you want to move UP out of Argentina so you can next click into the Sweden folder.

In Win XP there was an intuitive icon that took your focus up out of Argentina so you could next click into Sweden, fast, easy, & one-handed, with just 2 lightning fast mouse clicks.

In Win 7 Pro how do you do that?

I've already heard about the 2-handed exercise requiring the user to let go of the mouse, and type the name of the folder into the Win 7 search window, but that's a LOT more clumsy, slow and cumbersome than the simple, lightning-fast mouse clicks were in Win XP.

I can't believe Microsoft would have subtracted that capability out of Win 7, to make Windows harder and slower for we users, so I'm sure it's simply something that's hidden in Win 7 that I haven't found yet as a new user of Win 7.

Help appreciated. Thank you.

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"Parent folder" keyboard shortcut is ALT+up arrow.

The UI change to go for consistency in "back" (previous, not parent) behaviour was done in Vista, when the breadcrumb trail in the Explorer address bar was introduced for rapid folder navigation.

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You save a file in the Argentina folder, and then you want to move UP out of Argentina so you can next click into the Sweden folder.

In Win XP there was an intuitive icon that took your focus up out of Argentina so you could next click into Sweden, fast, easy, & one-handed, with just 2 lightning fast mouse clicks.

In Win 7 Pro how do you do that?

I'm not sure if this is something I changed in the Explorer options, but...

When I've got an Explorer window open (say c:\users\adamt\europe\sweden), it shows me all of this just below the window title, eg:

► Computer ► Sys (C:) ► users ► adamt ► europe ► sweden ►

If I want to move UP a level, I can just click on the bit where it says "europe", and this will take me up to c:\users\adamt\europe.

And now for the clever part: If I want to go from c:\users\adamt\europe\sweden to c:\users\adamt\europe\gibraltar, I can click on the little triangle ► to the right of where it says "sweden", and I can select Gibraltar, Germany or whichever other subfolder, from the drop-down list.

You could do the same thing, clicking on the "europe" folder, and selecting "asia" instead - taking you to c:\users\adamt\asia.

It's a bit of change from WinXP, but I quite like it.

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That's the "breadcrumb trail" I mentioned, a very neat addition in Vista.

Ah, righty.

I'd never heard that term before, and assumed it was something to do with the 'back' button history.

I'm fairly new to Win7 myself, and have read absolutely none of the documentation.

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"Parent folder" keyboard shortcut is ALT+up arrow.

The UI change to go for consistency in "back" (previous, not parent) behaviour was done in Vista, when the breadcrumb trail in the Explorer address bar was introduced for rapid folder navigation.

Mr. Snub,

ALT+up arrow works, I grant you that, but that's not as easy as the Up icon was in Windows XP. Thank you.

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And now for the clever part: If I want to go from c:\users\adamt\europe\sweden to c:\users\adamt\europe\gibraltar, I can click on the little triangle ► to the right of where it says "sweden", and I can select Gibraltar, Germany or whichever other subfolder, from the drop-down list.

You could do the same thing, clicking on the "europe" folder, and selecting "asia" instead - taking you to c:\users\adamt\asia.

It's a bit of change from WinXP, but I quite like it.

Yes! That's the answer!

Until your post explaining that I never knew the intevening little triangles take your focus "up."

Thank you!

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Hi Scott,

When you traverse through a folder list, you can see the folder names appearing on the left side below the standard Window buttons(minimise, maximise and Close button). You always have the option of traversing to any folder by clicking on the folder name directly.

Best Regards,

Shubha

I’m a new user of Windows 7 Pro.

In Windows XP I relied a lot on the upward pointing icon that’d move your focus up one level in the file directory structure. How do you move focus “up” one level in W7? The intuitive, user-friendly up-pointing icon in Win XP is gone in my installation of W7 Pro.

Say for example you have separate folders for each country, each containing files called by a database, which amounts to around 200 folders, all sitting at the same level, several levels down in your file directory tree.

You save a file in the Argentina folder, and then you want to move UP out of Argentina so you can next click into the Sweden folder.

In Win XP there was an intuitive icon that took your focus up out of Argentina so you could next click into Sweden, fast, easy, & one-handed, with just 2 lightning fast mouse clicks.

In Win 7 Pro how do you do that?

I've already heard about the 2-handed exercise requiring the user to let go of the mouse, and type the name of the folder into the Win 7 search window, but that's a LOT more clumsy, slow and cumbersome than the simple, lightning-fast mouse clicks were in Win XP.

I can't believe Microsoft would have subtracted that capability out of Win 7, to make Windows harder and slower for we users, so I'm sure it's simply something that's hidden in Win 7 that I haven't found yet as a new user of Win 7.

Help appreciated. Thank you.

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