How to change the address bar in Windows 7?

In Windows explorer in Windows 7 (and also Vista I think) the address bar doesn't contain a text string (as in XP) but a series of links and arrows.

Instead of:
C:\\My Documents\Pictures
you have:
<< Local Disc (C:) (arrow icon) My Documents (arrow icon) Pictures

The latter one is overcomplicated and exaggerated in my opinion and it prevents you from modifying the path directly and easily. Well actually it's not a real path but a bunch of links.
When I click the tiny arrow in the end of the task bar to see the history it automatically switches to the older and better style but it doesn't stay like this.

How can I make it always stay the old way, showing the path as a string, without having to switch it every time?

There are 3 things you can do:
1) Press Alt+D. This will focus the address bar and make it show the path as text.
2) Install my program Classic Shell. It has a feature to disable the breadcrumbs.
3) Install BreadCrumbKiller. It is much smaller than Classic Shell, but its implementation is not as polished and has some bugs.

One more thing. After you disable the breadcrumbs, you will lose the ability to go to the parent folder (since that's one of the features of the breadcrumbs). So I would recommend you try Classic Shell first, because it adds a button to go up one level (among other features).

I myself like the breadcrumbs. Even though I wrote a feature to disable them, I'm not using it :)

P.S. One more thing - another feature of Classic Shell is to show the path in the title bar. So if you just want to see the path all the time, that may be enough for you.

Ivo said:

There are 3 things you can do:
1) Press Alt+D. This will focus the address bar and make it show the path as text...

Selecting the control with the mouse has the same effect.

I grew to like the breadcrumbs. I even found my way home once.

I am playing w/ your Classic Shell today.

Ivo said:

There are 3 things you can do:
1) Press Alt+D. This will focus the address bar and make it show the path as text.
2) Install my program Classic Shell. It has a feature to disable the breadcrumbs.
3) Install BreadCrumbKiller. It is much smaller than Classic Shell, but its implementation is not as polished and has some bugs.

One more thing. After you disable the breadcrumbs, you will lose the ability to go to the parent folder (since that's one of the features of the breadcrumbs). So I would recommend you try Classic Shell first, because it adds a button to go up one level (among other features).

I myself like the breadcrumbs. Even though I wrote a feature to disable them, I'm not using it :)

P.S. One more thing - another feature of Classic Shell is to show the path in the title bar. So if you just want to see the path all the time, that may be enough for you.

Classic Shell is a very neat program and I like it. I also installed the Classic Start menu to try it along with the Classic Windows Explorer. Now is there a way to roll back the classic start menu? I tried uninstalling the program but that only made the things worse .

If you uninstall everything, then reboot, then install just Classic Explorer, it should work.

If you don't want to uninstall, simply disable the start menu from the registry. Open regedit, go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run and remove the "Classic Start Menu" entry.

I may try that, thanks