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This tip is for users who hide the desktop icons (for a clean looking desktop) and want to quickly access the Desktop folder when required, without toggling the Show Desktop Icons option in the context menu.
Option #1: Add "Explore" to the Desktop Right-Click menu
Download desktop-explore.zip, unzip and extract the contents to a folder. Double-click desktop-explore.reg to run it. This adds the Explore option to the Desktop right-click menu, which when clicked, opens Windows Explorer with focus on the Desktop folder.
Note that this tweak doesn’t work in Windows XP.
Option #2
Create a shortcut with the following command-line:
(REF: Shell Commands to access special folders)
You may place the shortcut in the Quick Launch toolbar or Pin it to the Start menu for easy access.
Note: The above command launches Windows Explorer with the Desktop namespace view in Windows Vista, thus showing the contents of the Public Desktop and User Desktop. Whereas in Windows XP, this launches the User Desktop folder.
Option #3
Use the WinKey + E keystroke to quickly launch Windows Explorer, and then select Desktop from the folder tree.
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It looks good! I can try this in Windows 7 inside Virtual PC; well, I’ll see that fix for XP.
For XP:
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000}]
@=”Desktop”
[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000}\InProcServer32]
@=hex(2):25,00,53,00,79,00,73,00,74,00,65,00,6d,00,52,00,6f,00,6f,00,74,00,25,\
00,5c,00,73,00,79,00,73,00,74,00,65,00,6d,00,33,00,32,00,5c,00,73,00,68,00,\
64,00,6f,00,63,00,76,00,77,00,2e,00,64,00,6c,00,6c,00,00,00
“ThreadingModel”=”Apartment”
[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000}\Instance]
“CLSID”=”{3f454f0e-42ae-4d7c-8ea3-328250d6e272}”
[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000}\Instance\InitPropertyBag]
“CLSID”=”{13709620-C279-11CE-A49E-444553540000}”
“command”=”Explore”
“method”=”ShellExecute”
“param1″=”shell:Desktop”
[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Directory\Background\shellex\ContextMenuHandlers\Desktop]
@=”{00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000}”