Remove Favorite Links Completely From Explorer and Common Dialog in Windows Vista

You know that the Favorite Links area in Windows Explorer can be hidden by moving its resize handle to the top. After tinkering with the registry I found a way to remove Favorite Links and prevent the user from enabling it again. The resize cursor wouldn’t appear when you hover your mouse pointer over the Favorite Links border, after applying this registry edit.

Favorite Links Lock Down - Registry Edit

Windows Explorer

Start Regedit.exe and navigate to the following location:

Double-click ProperTreeExpandoSizer and change its Value data from:

to

Open dialog box

Use this Registry location for Open dialog box:

Save dialog box

Screenshots

Fig 1: Favorite Links hidden, and the resize cursor shown.

Fig 2: Favorite Links removed, and no resize cursor. Horizontal line disappears.

Registry Fixes

I’ve put together a Zip file containing the above edits. Download favlinks_reg.zip, extract the contents to a folder and run the appropriate REG file(s). [Undo Information: To reverse the changes, run the corresponding "hide" REG file, which brings back the resize cursor for Favorite Links.]

Copyright © 2008 Ramesh Srinivasan. All rights reserved.