Windows 7: Navigation Pane Customization - Hide Favorites etc. . .

I have been having problems with the navigation pane. First of all I can't hide favorites or even organize it or put it below computer.

In this day and age every menu for any software can be organized but navigation pane cant?

I want to remove favorites and to move computer to the top.

Also, every time I click a folder, computer moves down again. What is with that?

Also, I would like to be able to single click in the navigation pane like in XP. Why do I have to double click in that pane? Doesn't it defeat the purpose of the navigation pane? I could just double click in the main window area.

Thanks

I'm sure that this has just been overlooked, hopefully someone has an answer.

Well I don't know about reorganizing the navigation pane but I think you can enable single click navigation from Control Panel>Folder Options> and make sure "single click to open an item" is checked.

any solution to hide libraries, favorites, homegroup and user from navigation pane ??

I don't know how to hide libraries or favorites, but you can get rid of the Homegroup category from the navigation pane by disabling the following services:

HomeGroup Listener
HomeGroup Provider

Note: Disabling these services will render all Homegroup features inoperable as well.

I got rid of the whole homegroup thing by making my network a Work network. I ended up deleting all the libraries so at least only the one Library root ever shows up. I then set up Explorer to start at My Computer by changing the shortcut target to

%windir%\explorer.exe /e,::{20d04fe0-3aea-1069-a2d8-08002b30309d}

Check out this thread.

I am actually using the Favorites and like it. But yes it would be nice to be able to move it towards the bottom, at least after My Computer, or that it would be collapsed when Explorer opens.

DJ

BTW, what build of Win 7 are you using?

To remove the Homegroup and Libraries icons from your desktop, open regedit.exe from the Start bar, and navigate to:

Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFWARE\Microsoft\Wind ows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Desktop\NameSpace\

In the NameSpace folder, there will be a folder (key) with the name {B4FB3F98-C1EA-428d-A78A-D1F5659CBA93} . The value of the default item should be "Other users". This is the registry entry Homegroup icon. Delete the folder from the registry.

In the NameSpace folder, there will be a folder (key) with the name {031E4825-7B94-4dc3-B131-E946B44C8DD5} . The value of the default item should be "Libraries". This is the registry entry This is the Libraries icon. Delete the folder from the registry.

Go to your desktop and hit F5, the icons should disappear. Libraries and Homegroup have retained their full functionality as far as I can tell, so it hasn't appeared to have affected the programs at all.

Bump. . . . I've got the same question: specifically, can you clean up the navigation pane by either removing Favorites, Libraries and Homegroup OR simply moving Computer to the top of the list. Thanks.

You could right click in the Navigation Pane & select "Show All Folders". This will place all entries except for "Favorites" under the entry "Desktop". And add to it a shortcut for Control Panel and the Recycle Bin, btw.

Then, right click again & select "Expand to Current Folder". Now, still in Navigation Pane, click on the arrow beside "Desktop", and then the arrow beside "Computer". This will set that menu to open on drive tree view in the pane. Now close the Explorer window.

Reopen Explorer window, right click in Navigation Pane & de-select "Expand to Current Folder". (Unless you want the Nav Pane to follow you as you click your way through folders)

You should now have only "Favorites" and "Desktop"(opened on "Computer") displayed in Navigation Pane.

Works here. I can deal with "Favorites" being at the top of the list as I use it quite often.

I just found these... they have to be manually deleted because of permissions (go into regedit.exe and take ownership in the permissions dialog).

Once they are deleted (and the keys above)... no more useless visual clutter!

Remove Library and "Share with" (Homegroup) menus from the top menu in explorer:

Navigate to this key:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\CommandStore\shell\

Take ownership of and delete:

Windows.includeinlibrary
Windows.Share