The three types of Files
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Computer Basics
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The three types of Files
All software is a file to a computer.Computers keep three basic kinds of files:
Application files
(Synonyms: Program = Application)
When you "open", "run" or "launch" (more confusing synonyms) an application program kind of file you create an environment where you can create and edit the kind of document which that application makes.
Examples: You would use a graphics program to create graphics documents (i.e.: images). You use a word processing program to create word processing documents (i.e.: memos to the boss, letters to mum).
Modern applications often have a whole bunch of ancillary files with them. Actually, the file that is the application itself may be just a little bit of All The Stuff that makes up what the application does.
Document files
These are the files we care about and we use applications to create them (e.g.: memos to the boss, pictures we create, etc.).System files
These are all the files that allow our computers to work at all. When these work right we don't care about them....In Macintoshes you can think of System Files as all that stuff in the System folder.
In Windows computers, this is all the stuff in the Windows folder.
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