Readers Questions.
IF01666
Q.
Can you tell me how I can add items to the left side (icons) of the "Look in"
dialog box in XP? I use this for attaching files to an email and would like to
have the most frequently used folders there instead of having to drill down.
A.
Customize The Places Bar In The Open Dialog Box In XP.
When you
choose Open from the File menu within a XP application, the Open dialog box will
appear. You should notice the Places Bar along the left hand side that contains
icons for common folders where users store documents. The Places Bar should
contain the following icons: Recent,
Desktop, My Documents, My Computer and
My
Network Places. Clicking any of these icons takes directly to that location.
Users often create their own folders for storing documents and may want to have
these folders listed in the Places Bar. You can modify the contents of the
Places Bar by making a change to the
Windows Registry as described below:
1. Click
Start and click Run
2. Type
regedit.exe and click OK.
3. Navigate
to the following key: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies.
4. With the
key selected, click the Edit menu, point to New, and click Key.
5. Type in
ComDlg32.
6. Select
the key you just created. Repeat set four to create a second key.
7. Type in
Placesbar.
8. Close
the Registry Editor.
You can
verify that the procedure above was successful by opening Notepad. Click Open
from the File menu. The Places Bar should be empty.
Caution!
|
• |
Incorrectly editing the registry may severely damage your system.
Before making changes to the registry, you should back up any valued
data on your computer. |
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You can add
up to five different icons to the Places Bar. This is done by adding the
necessary entries to the key you created above, as described in the steps
outlined below.
1. Click
Start and click Run
2. Type
regedit.exe and click OK.
3. Navigate
to the following key:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\ComDlg32\Placesbar.
4. From the
Edit menu, point to New, and click String Value.
5. Type in
Place0.
6. Double
click the string value and type in the path to the folder. For example, C:\MyFolders\MyWork.
7. Click
OK.
The folder
you specified in the path will now appear in the Places Bar. Remember, you can
add up to 5 places, using the String Values names Place0 (as you saw above)
through to Place4. At some point you may decide that you want to restore the
default icons to the Places Bar. All you have to do is delete the
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\ComDlg32
Registry key.
Let me know if you need anything else.
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