To easily identify currently selected folder in the Windows Explorer navigation pane, you can change the default open folder icon using a registry edit. This works fine in Windows XP as well as in Windows Vista.

Change the Open Folder icon in Windows Explorer

1. Launch Regedit.exe and navigate to the following location:

2. From the Edit menu, click New, click String Value..

3. Type 4 as the name of the new String Value, and then press ENTER

4. Double-click 4 and set its Value data to:

Note: You can also assign a custom icon file (.ico) as the Value data, instead of referencing the shell32.dll icon.

5. Exit the Registry Editor and restart Windows.

Registry Fix

To automate the above setting, download openfolder.zip and save to Desktop. Unzip the files to a folder and double-click openfolder.reg to run it. To reverse the changes to switch back to the default icon, run openfolder-undo.reg.

Screenshots

Open Windows Explorer and select a folder in the navigation pane. The folder icon should change to a green arrow, as in figure below:

Fig1: Folder pane in Windows Vista

Fig 2: Folder pane in Windows XP

Also note that in Windows Vista, the change will be seen in Registry Editor as well.

Fig 3: Registry Editor in Windows Vista

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