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Hello everybody,
I'm very new to all this. I'm learning a lot however I feel like there are certain fundamental concepts that I'm not understadning and that is holding me back. Right now, what I really don't understand is how files containing programs and directories on my operating system work.
On my Windows operating system, It seems like whenever I download something new it goes to a file called C:\Program Files. Each file in there will have a lot of little files named bin, lib, include, db, and other things like that. All of THOSE file have files with extensions .dll and .exe. What are these?? Why cant i open them? How do they all work together to produce a single functioning program?
When a computer program is executed how does it know what files to read, where to look for them, what to do with them and so forth?
Can anyone explain this to me?
Thank you very much in advance
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That's rather a long question for a forum like this. Files (which usually have extensions) are held in directories, which may themselves be held in directories. Directories are generally now referred to as folders. Think of it as a set of filing cabinets. Each cabinet has drawers and each drawer has sections, and within each section are individual documents. When you click on a file the shell knows what to do with it by looking up the extension name in a table. So a file with a .exe extension is sent to the program loader and starts running as an independent program. A file with the .doc extension causes the loading of a program that can process it (probably Microsoft Word), and so on.
Take a look at http://windows.microsoft.com/en-GB/windows-vista/Windows-Basics-all-topics[^] for some far better explanations.
One of these days I'm going to think of a really clever signature.
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sorry for the length of the question.
that was very helpful, thank you so much!@
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strrom7 wrote: sorry for the length of the question.
What I meant was that it would take quite a few pages to explain it clearly and in full detail. However, I hope the link I provided will help you.
One of these days I'm going to think of a really clever signature.
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