Windows Vista : Customize Windows Explorer (part 2) - Start Explorer with Any Folder, Save Your Desktop Layout

2. Start Explorer with Any Folder

For the most part, you get the same window when you double-click a folder icon on your desktop as when you use the Windows Explorer shortcut in your Start menu. But the latter, without a target, simply dumps you in your home folder.

To customize the folder that Windows Explorer opens by default, you need to create a custom Windows Shortcut. To start, right-click an empty space on your desktop and select New → Shortcut.

Next, type the following text into the Target field:

explorer.exed:\myfolder

where d:\myfolder is the full path of the folder you want Explorer to open. You might see the text %SystemRoot% in front of explorer.exe, which can be left alone or removed as desired.

Click OK when you're done, and then double-click the new shortcut to try it out. There are actually a bunch of different parameters you can use, should you feel the need to fine-tune the appearance of the folder tree. The full syntax is as follows:

explorer.exe [/n][,/e][,/root,object][[,/select],subobject]

The square brackets ([...]) show the optional nature of each of the parameters. Note that the syntax here isn't like most other programs that take command-line parameters; for instance, the parameters must be in order and separated by commas. However, unlike earlier version of Windows, you don't have to include the commas for omitted parameters.

/n

This opens a new window even if the folder is already open elsewhere.

/e

This shows the folder tree pane in the event you've turned it off.

/root , object

The /root,object parameter lets you choose what appears as the root of all folders in the new window, which is useful if you want an abbreviated tree for security reasons. The default, of course, is the desktop. You can specify an ordinary folder to be the root of the tree (i.e., /root,c:\stuff), or a system object by specifying its Class ID .

/select

If you include the /select switch along with a folder path (subobject, discussed next), Explorer opens the folder's parent and selects it in the right pane. Only if you omit /select does Explorer actually open the folder you specify. See the subobject entry, next, for an example of when this is useful.

subobject

This is the path to open, shown in the first example. Unless you use the /select option, Explorer highlights subobject in the tree and shows its contents in the right pane.

For example, if you want Explorer to open to the Computer folder so that no drive branches are initially expanded—which is handy if you have several drives and you want to see them all on equal footing—type this:

explorer.exe /n,/e,/select,c:\

Or, to display an Explorer window rooted at C:\, use this:

explorer.exe /n,/e,/root,c:\

In addition to launching Explorer with these parameters, you can open an Explorer window in the context of any object on the screen and Windows will send you to the right place.

For example, you can right-click on any visible folder icon (on your desktop, in an open folder, and even in the tree pane of another Explorer window) and select Explore to open a new Explorer window with the folder in question highlighted. You can also explore from various system objects by right-clicking and selecting Explore. This works on the Start button, any folder in your Start menu, and folders in your file dialogs.

3. Get to the Desktop

If you have to reach over a pile of papers just to reach your keyboard, then you're the type who likes surfaces. The Windows desktop is no exception, and yours is probably full of files you need. Problem is, they're always underneath everything else.

Here are some ways to get to the stuff on your desktop without much hassle:

Minimize everything

Hold the Windows logo key (which we'll call Winkey, just to be cute) and press D to quickly show the desktop. Press Winkey-D again to restore your windows (although not necessarily in the same sequence). Do this many times to give yourself a headache. 

Show Desktop

Don't want to use the keyboard? Just locate the Quick Launch toolbar, the little row of tiny buttons on the far left of your taskbar, and click the Show Desktop button (the blue rectangle in Figure 2). Give the button another click to restore the windows.

If the Quick Launch toolbar isn't there, right-click an empty area on your taskbar and go to Toolbars → Quick Launch. If you don't see the Show Desktop button, it may be buried inside the tiny white arrows; otherwise, see the "Make a Show Desktop Button" sidebar for tips.

You can also right-click an empty area of the Taskbar, and select Show the Desktop to do the same thing as the button. Then, to restore your windows, right-click the taskbar again and select Show Open Windows.

Figure 2. Use this handy button to show the Windows desktop without having to manually minimize all your windows

Make a Show Desktop Button By default, the Quick Launch toolbar comes with a Show Desktop button, which allows you to quickly hide all open windows and access stuff on your desktop, and then quickly bring them all back when you're done. But what if your Quick Launch toolbar doesn't have one? Unlike most other toolbar buttons, the Show Desktop button isn't a Windows Shortcut. Rather, it's a Shell Command File (.scf), which is really just a plain-text file containing a special command Windows understands. To create a new .scf file, open your favorite plain-text editor (or Notepad), and type the following five lines: [Shell] Command=2 IconFile=explorer.exe,3 [Taskbar] Command=ToggleDesktop Save the file as Show Desktop.scf (or any other name, provided that you include the .scf filename extension) anywhere you like, including your desktop. To have the icon appear on your Quick Launch toolbar, place the file in this folder: C:\Users\{user}\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Quick Launch If you like the Show Desktop button, but you don't like the clutter of the Quick Launch toolbar, you can simply eliminate the buttons you don't use by right-clicking each one and selecting Delete. Next, right-click an empty area of the Taskbar, turn off the Lock the Taskbar option, and then shrink down the newly sanitized Quick Launch toolbar so it's no larger than the remaining button, like the example in Figure 2-4. When things are the way you like them, turn Lock the Taskbar back on.

Open Windows Explorer

Another approach is to simply open a Windows Explorer window and navigate to the Desktop folder at the top of the tree. That way, you can leave your open programs intact, making it easier to drag files onto them from the desktop.

You can also drag files onto a minimized application, provided you have a steady hand and some patience. Just drag down to the taskbar and hover the file over the minimized application button you want to restore. Although you can't drop files on the buttons themselves, if you wait a second or two, Windows will restore the application window, at which point you can drag the file over to the window and drop it.

Icons on the taskbar

Right-click an empty area of the taskbar, select Toolbars, and then select Desktop. By default, the toolbar will probably be smushed up against the notification area (tray) and the clock, so right-click the taskbar again and turn off the Lock the Taskbar option so you can move the Desktop toolbar around. Next, right-click the Desktop title and select the Show Text option to fit more icons on the bar. It's not the most convenient interface, especially if you have a lot on your desktop, but it's there if you need it.

4. Save Your Desktop Layout

Let me guess: you sneezed and Windows rearranged your desktop icons.

This happens for a variety of reasons, most commonly any time Windows changes the screen resolution (often for games), when you update your display settings, or when you install a new video card driver. But it'll also happen whenever you use the Magnifier tool that comes with Vista, or when you change the desktop icon size (discussed next). Regardless of the trigger, it's a petty annoyance we all could do without.

There are a variety of tools designed to combat this problem, but most have died out for one reason or another. The quick and dirty—not to mention free—solution is to use an add-on released by Microsoft several years ago; with a little tweak, it works just fine in Vista (32-bit edition only). Here's how you install and use it:

Now, if Windows isn't spontaneously rearranging your desktop icons, but refuses to let you put them where you want them, there's a fix for that, too. This problem is caused by either one of two mechanisms designed to help keep your desktop icons tidy, and you'll have to turn at least one of them off to more freely place your desktop icons. Right-click an empty area of the desktop, select View, and turn off the Auto Arrange option. The other, Align to Grid, is discussed next.

4.1. Control the space between desktop icons

As any green grocer will tell you, the most efficient way to stack oranges is the face-centered cubic arrangement, wherein each piece of fruit is placed in the cavity formed by three adjacent oranges in the lower plane. (For more information, Google "Kepler Conjecture.") Sadly, Windows Vista doesn't have this option, but if you're content with Windows' rectilinear arrangement, you can fine-tune row and column spacing on the desktop.

Also in the aforementioned View menu is the Align to Grid option. Leave it on, and your icons will always appear lined up in rows and columns; turn it off to have complete flexibility when dragging your icons around the desktop.

To change the spacing, right-click an empty area of the desktop, select Personalize, and then click Window Color and Appearance. Click the Open classic appearance properties for more color options link, and then click Advanced. (Or, if you're not using Vista's Aero interface, just click Advanced here.) From the Item drop-down menu, choose Icon Spacing (Horizontal) and adjust the spacing by changing the Size value to indicate the number of pixels between the edges of adjacent icons.

A good value is approximately 1.3 to 1.5 times the width of an icon. To find the size of your desktop icons, right-click an empty area of the desktop and select View. If Medium Icons (the default) is checked, your icons are 44×44. For Classic Icons, they're the standard 32×32; for Large Icons, they're 86×86.

So, if you're using classic icons, specify 40 in the Advanced Appearance window to pack them pretty closely, or 50 to spread them apart. Next, change the Icon Spacing (Vertical) value; use the same number for both the horizontal and vertical measurements, and the result will look pretty good.