Control what's displayed in Explorer left panel?

[garyfritz]

Vista introduced the Favorites panel of "shortcuts" in the upper-left corner of the Explorer window. I *loved* this feature and used it constantly.

Win7's Explorer is kind of similar, but there are several things about it I don't like. Is there any way to fix these?

* In Vista the shortcuts were in a separate pane, so they were always visible. In Win7 there is one pane on the left, and the Favorites shortcuts are generally scrolled off the screen. Is there any way to split the left pane into two panes so the Favorites are always visible?

* The Win7 left pane includes the user's directory. That's fine, but it always insists on expanding the user directory, which means there about 25 lines in that pane that I generally don't care about. I use the shortcuts at the top and the actual disk paths at the bottom. Can I remove the user directory from that pane, or at least have it closed by default? And while I'm at it, can the Libraries be closed by default too? ((Ah -- I just discovered I can remove the user folder by choosing Organize -> Folder and Search options, unselect Navigation Pane -> Show all folders. Any other similar suggestions e.g. for the Libraries?))

Thanks!
Gary

 

[garyfritz]

No joy? Maybe I should copy explorer.exe from Vista to Win7 ....

 

[ignatzatsonic]

You can whittle down the left pane quite a bit--eliminating Homegroup, Network, and Libraries.

 

[Gator]

Did you try Explorer2 lite or Classic shell?

http://www.zabkat.com/tour/x2intro.htm


Welcome to Classic Shell

 

[Brink]

Hello Gary,

Check the "Navigation Pane" tutorials at the link below to see if those may be able to help you do what you would like to do with the navigation pane.

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/257-windows-7-tutorial-index-2.html#post1077

Hope this helps,
Shawn

 

[Imperfect1]

And then, there's this:
Windows 7 Navigation Pane Customizer: Show, Hide, Rename Items In Windows Explorer Navigation Pane | door2windows