Windows 7 / Getting Started

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Customizing the UI

In Windows 7, Windows Explorer has gone though a kind facelift, evident most notably in the new Libraries feature, as well as with native support for touchscreens. Apart from this, Windows 7 also packs some nice little surprises to spice up your Windows experience.

Change Windows Explorer's Default View

When you launch Windows Explorer, the default view you will get is always the Libraries.

Though Microsoft thinks that your interaction with files should center around Libraries, not everyone will find it useful. In particular, you may want Computer (where it will display the disk drives available on your computer) to be displayed when you open Windows Explorer.

To display something different, such as Computer, when you open Windows Explorer, you need to undertake some tweaks. Click the Start menu and select All Programs → Accessories. Right-click the Windows Explorer icon and select Properties.

In the Properties window, click the Shortcut tab; you should see the Target attribute set to:

%windir%\explorer.exe

Change it to the following:

%SystemRoot%\explorer.exe /root,::{20D04FE0-3AEA-1069-A2D8-08002B30309D}

Once this step is performed, whenever you open Windows Explorer, Computer will now be shown.

Note that performing the steps outlined here affects Windows Explorer only in the Accessories folder. That is, if you launch Windows Explorer from the icon pinned to the taskbar, you will still see the Libraries. To fix this, you need to unpin the Windows Explorer icon from the taskbar and then pin it to the taskbar again.

Note Note that if you right-click the Start menu and select Windows Explorer, it will still display the Libraries.