Add Specific Folders to Open/Save Dialog boxes

When you use certain Windows applications (such as Notepad) to open a file, on the

left side of the Open dialog box you may have noticed a group of icons and folders

(such as My Documents, My Recent Documents, Desktop, My Computer etc) to which

you can navigate to open files. A registry hack will let you put just the folders of your

choice on the left side of the Open dialog box. Note that when you do this,it will be applied

to XP applications such as Notepad and Paint that use the Open and Save common dialog

boxes. However, it won’t affect Microsoft Office applications and other applications that

don’t use the common dialog boxes.

To start, create the following key in registry:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\comdlg32\Placesbar

( Upto Policies might be there. You may have to create the other 2 ).

Now create a String value for it named Place0. Give Place0 a value of the topmost folder that

you want to appear on the Open dialog box, for example, C:\Projects.Next, create another

String value for Placesbar called Place1. Give it a value of the second folder that you want to

appear on the Open dialog box. You can put up to five icons on the Open dialog box, so create

new String values up to Place4 and give them values as outlined in the previous steps.Now

you may see the result of what you have just done by taking Open/Save dialog of applications

such as Notepad/Paint.

If you want to disable this feature, you can do that as well. In HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\ Policies\

comdlg32, create a new DWORD value called NoPlacesBar and give it a value of 1.If you want

the folders back, either delete NoPlacesBar or give it a value of 0.