The ‘My Documents’ tree

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Is there a way for the computer to not show the My Documents “tree”? When opening anything by virtually any means, you get the standard navigation window. The My Documents listing is always expanded. My limited experience shows me that most people don’t use the My Documents listing, which necessitates closing up that ‘tree’ so one can see where one wants to go. Is there a simple way to keep the My Documents tree from automatically expanding? If it requires a regedit, I’m not a registry editor so I don’t really want to go there. As always, thanks for any help and suggestions.

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1) You can create a shortcut to Windows Explorer that starts anywhere you like: set the Target of the shortcut to (for example)

explorer.exe /e ,C:Program Files

This will start Windows Explorer with C:Program Files selected and expanded.

2) You can specify a default folder for most applications. For some, such as the Office applications, you set the default folder in the application itself, in Tools | Options… For others, you specify the default folder in the ‘Start in’ box in the properties of the shortcut used to start the application.
However, My Documents cannot always be avoided. If you save an attachment from an e-mail in Outlook, the Save As dialog will always start in My Documents.

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Thanks for your help, Hans. I knew there had to be a couple of little quirks in there somewhere. I have used the default folder options in most applications, with some limited success. However, I fear it is a situation of MS and ‘Mr. Bill’s’ “gotcha!” …. My way or the highway

I’ve read about the shortcut solution for Windows Explorer. Have not tried it yet but I will.

You folks are the best

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If you like you can also, in addition to Hans’ suggestions, use Tweak UI from Microsoft and change what is shown as first icon on the desktop in Explorer, i.e. change it from My Documents to My Computer.

See this thread: Order of items in Explorer treeview

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The Windows Explorer desktop icon/shortcut Properties -> Target on all the PCs I work on gets changed on first use from
C:WINDOWSexplorer.exe (or near offer)
to
C:WINDOWSexplorer.exe /e,C:
to always open up pointing at C:…

John

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