How can I select a group of files in Microsoft Windows XP?

Most people are familiar with "cut", "copy" and "paste" actions from using them to manipulate text in a word processing program like Microsoft Word. You select a line of text, go to the "Edit" menu and pick "Copy" (or hit Ctrl-C), then put the cursor where you want to paste the text and pick "Edit -> Paste" (or hit Ctrl-V). What many users don't realize is that you can do the same thing to move or copy files, which is often easier than using drag-and-drop.

First, find a file that you want to move or copy, click on the file using the left mouse button to select the file, then right-click on it to bring up the right-click menu which includes "Cut" and "Copy":

(Instead of right-clicking to pick "Cut" or "Copy", you can also hit Ctrl-X or Ctrl-C, just as you can to cut or copy text in a word processor.)

If you pick "Cut", the file that you selected will turn a ghostly pale, indicating that after you "Paste" it somewhere else, it will disappear from its current location:

As you might expect, after you choose to "Cut" or "Copy" a file, you will be able to "Paste" the file into a different folder; if you chose "Cut", then the file will be moved out of its original location and into that new folder, but if you chose "Copy", then a copy of the file will be placed in the destination folder.

To finish the process of moving or copying a file, browse to the destination folder, then right-click in the empty space inside that folder and pick "Paste" (which wasn't on the right-click menu before, because you didn't have anything to "paste" yet):

To experienced users, this is often easier than opening the folder containing the file on the left side of the screen, opening the destination folder on the right side of the screen, and dragging the file from the left folder to the right folder, or something similar.

What if you want to move or copy a group of files? The first method that most people learn for selecting a group of files, is to hold the mouse button down and draw a rectangle around the files you want to select:

But what if you want to select a group of files that are not arranged consecutively -- for example, if you only want to copy the first, third, fourth, and sixth photo in a group? To do this, click to select the first photo that you want to include in your selection. Then hold down the Ctrl key, and click on the third, fourth, and sixth photo. Each time you click on a new file, the files that you've already selected, will stay selected:

You can then right-click on your group of selected file, and copy and paste them just as you would copy and paste a single selected file.

Bennett Haselton is a technology and political blogger who will talk your ear off about how to bypass Websense if you let him.