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These objects are the links to files, folders or programs stored at some other location. These are represented by
the icon having a jump arrow to its lower left corner.

Kno
Knowledge Botwledge Bot
The Windows operating system has provided a Ribbon in most of its native applications. The Ribbon
contains icons for various commands to perform different actions. The Ribbon is divided into Tabs and
Groups. A Tab contains commands related to one type of activities. Each tab is divided into Groups
which present various options related to an action.

INTRODUCTION TO FILE SYSTEM

A computer system cannot store all information a user needs in its primary
memory ‘RAM’ due to its size restrictions. Thus, we need secondary storage
devices such as hard disk, CD/DVD, pen drives, memory cards or network storage.
Let us understand how the computer stores and manages information.

Every physical secondary storage device (hard disk, DVD, pen drive, etc.) are
divided into tracks and sectors. Tracks are concentric circles on a disk whereas
sectors are small sections on each track. A group of contiguous sectors is called a
cluster. The size of each sector is fixed. Thus, a fixed amount of data can be stored on one part of a disk.
All information in a computer is stored in form of files. A file is nothing but a location on the disk where the data
is stored. The entire contents of a file may be saved at a single location or broken up into segments, with each
segment stored at different locations. It is the responsibility of the operating system to collect all parts of a file
from various locations and display it as one unit to the user. This is managed by the operating system through a
file management system. A file system is the part of the operating system that is responsible for managing files
and the resources on which these reside.

Basic Functions of File System
A file system performs the following functions:

u Presents a logical or abstract view of files and directories to the users by hiding the physical details of
secondary storage devices and the I/O operations for communicating with the devices.
u Facilitates efficient use of the underlying storage devices.
u Supports sharing of files among different users and applications. This includes providing protection
mechanisms to ensure that information is exchanged in a controlled and secure manner.
A file is given a name when it is stored. The file name is a sequence of characters, such as “MyFirstDocument.
docx”, but internally it stores the addresses of the locations where the data of the file is stored on the disk. Apart
from the file location, the file also stores information about the type, size, owner, status, access permissions, and
current state of a file.

The file system keeps track of all files and their attributes to perform its functions. File systems typically have
directories that associate file names with files, usually by connecting the file name to an index into a file allocation
table of some sort, such as the FAT in an MS DOS file system, or an inode in a UNIX file system.

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