The Views menu, which controls the right pane, scales the file and folder objects there up to extremely large, and down to very small. As it does so, it also delivers the same views you've come to expect in the folder window, like Details, List, and Tiles, and there are three different sizes of icons. Since the icons show the contents of the files and folders they represent, the larger icons actually have some value to you.

The only other new aspects are the search functionality (covered later in this story) and the information pane that runs along the bottom of the new Explorer. It provides text information, in context, of the object currently selected.

All in all, the Windows Explorer is a pretty slick upgrade that makes working with your folders and files much easier.

Search

In the earliest days of scoping out Windows Vista, Microsoft set itself the ambitious goal of turning the file system into a true database, and in that way building search into the very plumbing of the operating system.