I just took a new job as a policy analyst, and after even one week keeping track of hundreds of files- lawsuits, legislation, letters, etc- in Windows 7 is proving difficult.

In my last job I was a database architect and I helped build Linux based servers to track files among an entire department, however there is no way for me to do that at this time in this job.

Is there any way to track files/indices/locations/tags/themes and store them in some kind of RDBMS system, instead of storing the files in folders that only allow for flat and fixed storage?

For example, if I have a file that deals with:

1. ELID organization
2. Appeals court
3. John Smith

It really is inconvenient to have to decide which one of these tags to create into a folder and place the file into it, when it falls under all the categories. Even if I could place tags the way you can in Stack Exchange on files, it would solve a lot of heart ache.