Attached Link: http://www.pcworld.com/howto/article/0,aid,81988,pg,2,00.asp

There are actually quite a few tweaks in Windows.

First of all, I'd avoid My Recent Documents as a place to put shortcuts. Stuff in there can get deleted, or simply disappear. This folder seems to fill up with junk, but only some of it appears on the menu.

Other likely places for shortcuts are the Start Menu, the Start Menu / Programs folder, or one of the desktop toolbars. I like these toolbars and use them for lots of stuff. First go to My Documents and create a folder to hold the shortcuts for the toolbar (I call mine Sidebar because it runs along the right side of the desktop). Then right-click on an empty area of the windows Taskbar, choose Toolbars, and then New Toolbar... Browse to the folder you created, and click OK.
The new toolbar should appear on the Taskbar. Grab the little handle on the left side of the toolbar and put it wherever you want it. (You may need to unlock the taskbar in order to move it: right-click taskbar and uncheck Lock The Taskbar.) The toolbar will dock against any side of the desktop, or float.

You set the options for the toolbar by right-clicking in a blank area. I have my sidebar set up with the following options:

View -> small icons
Show text -> unchecked
Show title -> unchecked
Toolbar manually resized to just the width of the small icons by clicking & dragging the edge.
Auto-hide -> checked

The toolbar takes up almost no room this way, and slides out of the way when not needed. Just put the mouse against the edge of the screen where it is docked, and it pops back up.

As for the shortcuts, rather than just creating a shortcut to a folder, you can do a lot more by using a shortcut to EXPLORER.EXE and specifying some switches in the shortcut. Command line switches for Explorer can be used to open it with or without folders visible, with a particular folder selected, and with a particular folder pinned as the top-level folder. I have a shortcut to my Poser runtime, which opens runtime up as a top-level folder (no My Computer, Network Neighborhood, or other clutter) and with all the sub-folders displayed in the tree on the left. The command in the shortcut's Target box looks like this:

C:WINDOWSEXPLORER.EXE /e,/root,"C:Program FilesPoser 6Runtime"

Use the link at the top of the posting to see what other command line switches are available for Windows Explorer.

Message edited on: 12/06/2005 17:02

• Jimdoria  ~@>@