Quick Access to Frequent Folders
I have seen a lot of different ways to get to a folder in Windows Explorer. Some people right-click the Start button and choose Explore. Other people hit the Windows-E key combination on the keyboard. Other (brave) people hunt through the Start menu.
Waste of time! You then have to spend fifteen minutes hunting for the directory you want. Usually, its easier to pick up a magazine and read for a few minutes.
I want to be able to click once, maybe twice, and be right at my folder.
“Use a shortcut, pie-face!”
Well, I could, but when a folder window gets opened from a shortcut, the folders pane is missing. Then I have to click the “Folders” button to bring it back. Doing this once or twice isn’t a problem, but when you have to do that a thousand times a day, it gets old.
Well, I found a way to click a shortcut and have the folders pane appear by default.
- Create a shortcut of the folder in question.
- Right-click it and choose “Properties”.
- On the “Shortcut” tab, in the Target text box, add the following to the beginning: %SystemRoot%\explorer.exe /n, /e,. (Also, put double quotes around the directory name that was already in the text box.)
- Voila! Now, when you double-click your shortcut, you are taken right to the directory, folders pane and all.
“OK, pie-face, but where am I supposed to put them?”
Easy! I usually create a folder in My Documents named Docs (or whatever name you prefer) and drop the shortcut in there. I then create a toolbar for the task bar that points to that directory. (Right-click the taskbar, choose Toolbars > New Toolbar, and choose your shortcut directory.) I then move the tool bar all the way to the right, so that just the name and the a little double-arrow are showing. I click the double-arrow, and voila, there are my shortcuts (as can be seen in the screen shot to the right).
You can re-order the items in the Toolbar by dragging them around.
