Windows 7: How Libraries Work

Game Changer?

How much does this feature contribute to being a significant improvement over:

Windows XP [rating:4]
Windows Vista [rating:3.25]

What are Libraries?

‘Libraries’ is a new feature in the sense that it’s heavily exposed for the first time in Windows 7. A library is a virtual location within Windows that aggregates files and folders from different physical locations from all over your hard drive (and other media, potentially even online resources). Using this feature, you could combine related data to one logical spot without having to cut and paste them into a real directory. Using this slightly advanced, but very useful technology you could for instance:

Put all your work-documents in one place, even if they’re scattered across multiple locations
Gather photos related to a single event, no matter where they’re saved.
Etc.

Changes made to included files and folders are instantaneously propagated to their libraries, showing up-to-date information across the board.

Vista Roots

Libraries actually harness technology that has been in development at Microsoft since the announcement of Windows Longhorn (codename for Vista). While ‘Search Folders’ — as they were called in Windows Vista – were taken from the foreground due its added complexity, they’re back for keeps in Windows 7.

With this technology, Microsoft is further abstracting the notion of absolute physical locations and is moving to a virtual system like we have known them for years from UNIX-based operating systems (e.g. Mac OS X and Linux).

Just open up your documents ‘folder’ under Windows 7 and you’ll be confronted with Libraries right away.

(click to enlarge)

While this is not the main subject of this article, you may have noticed in the screenshot that Explorer-windows have undergone serious changes [once more]. The tree-based, hierarchical explorer side-pane has been replaced for a more Mac-like sidebar. It includes several items by default:

Favorites
Favorite explorer locations (folders and libraries). Customizable.
Libraries
Populated with de facto libraries like Documents, Music, Videos, etc.
Computer
Hierarchical view of physical locations on your computer.
Network
Tree-based navigation to discovered network and HomeGroup locations.

Look Ma! Aggregated Locations!

By default, the actual content pane of a library separates distinct physical locations by use of the new ‘Content’-view setting.

How do you get a library to pull its data from your specified locations? This is Microsoft technology, so there is more than one way to achieve the same result. In case of Libraries, there are two ways to fetch data:

After selecting a folder on your hard disk, an option will appear on the Explorer contextual task-bar (light-blue, atop every window). This option is a drop-down menu listing any existing libraries and a command to create a new library and add the respective location on-the-fly.
In the top-right corner of every library, click the ‘Include’-link. This will bring up a dialog box in which you can manually seek out a directory for inclusion.

Is it too difficult?

While this feature can seem rather abstract to a novice user, it’s seamless enough that an unknowing Windows-user won’t notice it and therefore won’t be bothered with its complexity.

Those who are technical enough to understand its importance will appreciate its entrance into the standard set of Windows features.

Conclusion

‘Libraries’ are a nice addition to Windows and will make a power users’ life more productive if used in the right way. It got lost in Vista having been renamed and toned down time after time, but this time around it’s back in quasi-full glory. Aside from its powerful organizational features, it is also an effort to work away drive letters (C:, D:, etc.) and move to a more relational file system.