Mitch teaches a computer science introductory class. He has people work on word processing, spreadsheets, databases, and internet programs. All these programs have already been installed on his computer. He wants to put them in a group together, but he doesn't want to change where they are on the disk. Since he is using Windows 3.1, he knows that the program manager is the main symbolic management program in the system. He goes to Program manager, and surfs the menus until he finds an item called "new program group." He selects that option, and gets a prompt for the name of his group. He decides to call it CS100. When he looks at program manager again, it has a number of groups available. One of the icons says CS100. He double clicks on it, and finds it is empty. He isn't too concerned about this, because he wants to put stuff in it. He opens file manager to find the files and programs that he wants in this CS100 group. (because Windows 3.1 can handle multitasking, it is no problem to have two different programs open at once) He finds his word processing program in file manager, and drags it to the CS100 group window in program manager. An icon for his word processing program magically appears in the CS100 group! This is just a SHORTCUT to the word processing program. The file has not moved at all. It is still where he found it in file manager. He repeats this process with all the other applications and files that he wants.
What if Mitch changes word processors? If he deletes the word processing icon in Program manager, will his program be deleted from the disk?
When Mitch moves on to Windows 95 (Get with the times, Mitch!) he can do similar work. Windows 95 still has program manager, but most people prefer to use the start menu or desktop. Common files can be dragged to either of these things and will become part of that symbolic structure.