Windows 10: Windows 11 Registry Edit To Customize File Explorer To Open At A Specific Location

I typically open file explorer by using the Windows Key + E since I usually have a number of windows open at any given time. The current choices for the default open location are "Home", "This PC", and "DropBox". Since the Dropbox app somehow created a File Explorer choice, I think it should be possible to create a custom choice for the location I would find useful. Is there a registry hack, or other method to force File Explorer to open to a specific location I select when I use the Windows Key + E? Note: I know how to do this with a desktop shortcut, however, my preferred method of us

:)

 

Custom Registry Files

Techpowerup nor myself are in no way responsible for anything that may or may not go wrong with a users system if s/he decides to use these registry hacks. You are doing so at your own risk and agree to release me and or Techpowerup from fault that may occur. If a user decides to use these registry hacks, you must BACKUP YOUR REGISTRY FIRST!

To backup your registry click Start>Run (or use windows search from the start menu) and type "Regedit" without quotes. Click on File>Export. Name the file whatever you wish and save it somewhere that is NOT on your Windows drive.

Contained inside the attached RAR file you will find 13 registry hacks. They are:

• Copy To - Adds Copy To to the right click context menu
• Move To - Adds Move To to the right click context menu
• Enable Balloon Notification - Self explanatory
• Disable Balloon Notification - Self explanatory
• Extended UI Hover Time - Despite its name it decreases the time it takes to preview a thumbnail
• Instant Aero Peek - Self explanatory
• Last Active Click - If you have multiple of the same program open, click the icon and it will bring to you your last open window of that program. Click again and you can cycle through.
• Menu Show Delay - Decreases the time it takes for the start menu to appear
• Move Kernel - Moves the Windows Kernel from the HDD to memory increasing system performance slightly.
• Stop Snap - Disables the Windows 7 Snap feature (when you drag a window to the corner of the screen)
• Stop Space Checking - Keeps Windows from constantly checking disk space
• USB Write Protect - Disallows Windows to write to any USB device but will still allow the device to be read from.
• Wait To Kill Service Timeout - Decreases the time it takes windows to wait for a program to fully close before shutting down.

I have tested all but Move Kernel, Stop Space Checking, and USB Write Protect and they all work 100%. If you open up the registry file I provide, it will give you more information on where the key specifically is along with some information on what it does. Obviously the Aero Peek and Hover time hacks will not work on versions of Windows earlier than 7.

I got the Copy To and Move to from How To Geek and the rest I just Googled and turned into a registry file for convenience. Not sure how many of you guys will need this but i found some new registry hacks that Ill be using now while doing this so I thought I would share with the community. Make me good for something. *Roll Eyes

If I come across more Ill edit this post and upload the new zip. Feel free as well to tell us any registry hacks you use and I could even add them to the list. *Smile

Enjoy!

 

Windows 10 Tweaks

Pressing “Windows+Pause Break” (it’s up there next to scroll lock) opens the “System” Window.

Windows 10: In the new version of Windows, Explorer has a section called Quick Access. This includes your frequent folders and recent files. Explorer defaults to opening this page when you open a new window. If you’d rather open the usual This PC, with links to your drives and library folders, follow these steps:

• Open a new Explorer window.
• Click View in the ribbon.
• Click Options.
• Under General, next to “Open File Explorer to:” choose “This PC.”
• Click OK

credit to Lifehacker.

 

Can I customize the list of suggest apps in the "Open with" menu?

Well, I hope this helps the OP - it took a while. I tried 'Default Program Editor' (DPE) and it did indeed add (or remove) items, but when I tried to specifically add Word to pdf opening, it failed - it went through the motions, but nothing happened. So I started again, playing with settings for opening .doc files. This seemed to work: initially in explorer I had 3 programs appear in the 'default' list that pops up on a rt-click>open-with:



and this is what the relevant bit of the Registry showed:



Don't ask me why just 3 of those 8 (a to h) programs show up (maybe the 'instant' list is limited to three? - no, see later) - anyway, I used DPE to remove Wordpad from the list: when saving the edit as a REG file, this is what I got:

Code:

and the result in Explorer was:



and the registry now shows:



Note how item 'g' from the list has been removed (it seems there is no issue with having a letter missing). I then messed about trying to open a .doc file with various other programs, and they all started to appear in the 'instant' list:




So I thought 'well, that is easy - just open a pdf once in Word and it should appear'. So back to trying to open PDFs: but however many times I tried, Word would never appear.



even though there were any number of entries in the Registry 'Open With' list, including Word:



So what did DPE make of this - well, it showed some of the entries:



Although Word is shown, it doesn't appear on a rt-click. Its entry can be removed, but that doesn't help. So my attention was drawn to the existence of another folder below 'OpenWithList', namely 'OpenWithProgids', and that contained a specific ref to Sumatra (my preferred program for PDFs). Looking back at the same entry for .docx, I found this:



so I added an identical Word.Document.12 ref to the list for PDFs:



I think IrfanView is there as it got added during my experiments! I now get this in Explorer:


Hurrah! I then tried to use DPE to remove the redundant entries, and got this as a .REG file:
Code:

But when i merge that with the registry, the IrfanView item does not get deleted:



and as seen in the registry:



so I deleted it by hand, and at last have the entries I (or rather, the OP) want:




Note that my manually added reg entry is of type Binary', as there seems to be no way to add a value of type 'None'.

So it seems that DPE cannot cope with entries in the 'Progids' list, and something makes some programs fall into that list, rather than the 'openwithlist'. I am sorry for any typos above, or pictures in the wrong place - can't be bothered to check it too thoroughly. Hope it helps someone!

atb, Martin