Deleting items from the explorer left nav tree

[ksdixon]

Namely Libraries/HomeGroup/Network/Control Panel (and Public on a Vista Machine).

I found posts on these the other day, but my RegEdit doesn't have a CLSID folder, only CLS, so I couldn't follow those tutorials.

 

[Brink]

Hello LilSing,

This should be able to help you delete these items.

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/35627-libraries-folder-add-remove-navigation-pane.html

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/39670-homegroup-add-remove-navigation-pane.html

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/39699-network-add-remove-navigation-pane.html

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/47341-control-panel-add-remove-navigation-pane.html

Hope this helps,
Shawn

 

[ksdixon]

Hi Shawn.

Those are the topics I found the other day, but unfortunately I falter right at the start, Step 3.
I don't know if I've done something to mess up my regestry, but I do not have the folder it's telling me to navigate to:
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\I have a CLS folder, but that doesn't look to have anything useful inside it.
What can I do?

 

[Brink]

Hello Lilsting,

You just haven't scrolled down far enough yet. You will see CLSID after you scroll past all of the initial file extensions listed. In the registry screenshot in the links, make note of the position of the scroll bar slider for the left pane to help see about how far to scroll down.

Since you are new to the registry, I would recommend that you create a restore point before making any changes in the registry to be safe. This way if you make a mistake, you can do a system restore back to the restore point to easily undo it.

Hope this helps,
Shawn

 

[ksdixon]

Thanks for this. I've deleted them all now.

Although the opening post didn't ask for it, how would I go about removing

a) Favorites on the Win7 navigation menu.
b) Hardrives from 'Computer' in the Win7 navigation menu (you know, like SD Card hardrives that I never use because I don't use SD cards?)
c) Public on a Vista Navigation menu.

 

[Brink]

You're welcome.

A) http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/38933-favorites-add-remove-navigation-pane.html

B) Normally you will not be able to unless you remove or hide the hard drive. However, you may be able to set Windows 7 to hide empty drives for them not to show up.

C) I have not tried this yet, but you may be able to do just like you did in the other tutorials to remove Public from the Navigation Pane but with the {4336a54d-038b-4685-ab02-99bb52d3fb8b} GUID instead for the Public folder.

 

[dek]

thanks

 

[ksdixon]

Is there any way that someone can create Remove/Restore reg files for me, so that I don't have to manually edit the reg of each family members laptops? They're all on 64bit machines.

Like it is here:
http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/28677-new-context-menu-remove-restore-default-menu-items.html

 

[Brink]

Hello Lilsting,

I would be happy to for you, but the only problem is that you must manually take ownership and "Allow" the user account "Full Control" of each registry key in the tutorial anyways first. Otherwise the REG files will fail to merge. It would be faster to change them while your in the registry anyway.

 

[ksdixon]

My PC already had the manual registry edits in place, but I found some software which will quickly change what is displayed in the left nav tree without having to re-edit the registry: Windows 7 Navigation Pane Customizer: Show, Hide, Rename Items In Windows Explorer Navigation Pane | door2windows

It does not seem to remove Network or Control Panel from my sister's laptop though, though this may be because I have not done the manual reg edits for her yet. (This software did remove Favorites, HomeGroup and Libraries though).

EDIT:
My PC is 32bit, sister's laptop is 64bit. That probably has something to do with it.