Windows Explorer Defaults to Libraries Folder in Windows 7

When you open Windows Explorer in Windows 7, it opens the Libraries folder by default. You can change the default startup folder using the Windows Explorer shortcut properties, as you did in earlier versions of Windows. Note that you cannot change the default start folder if you’re using WinKey + E to launch Explorer.

In Windows 7, right-clicking on the Windows Explorer Taskbar icon will show the Jump Lists. To access the shortcut properties, hold the SHIFT key down, right-click on the shortcut and choose Properties. Rest of the procedure is the same as in other versions of Windows.

To change the startup folder to (My) Computer, use this target path:

explorer.exe ::{20D04FE0-3AEA-1069-A2D8-08002B30309D}

Where the GUID {20D04FE0-3AEA-1069-A2D8-08002B30309D} represents the My Computer folder.

For Documents folder, use this target path:

explorer.exe ::{450D8FBA-AD25-11D0-98A8-0800361B1103}

You may also suffix the full path instead of using GUID. For example,

explorer.exe D:\Scripts

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23 Comments

Yaz

said this on Friday, October 9th 2009 3:26 am

Hey guys,

i made a simple tool to automate this for you, and Also WinKey + E works when you use the tool to set the default folder.

http://www.filefront.com/14681029/Windows7ExplorerPathChangerSetup.zip/
Jon

said this on Thursday, September 17th 2009 5:22 am

Thanks, works great! I have no desire to go to my Libraries, My Computer is much better for me.
James

said this on Friday, September 11th 2009 4:25 pm

I’ve set mine up to start in my user folder /n,::{59031a47-3f72-44a7-89c5-5595fe6b30ee} if you use just C:\User\{username} it starts all the way inside the c: drive not desktop – username a list of all GUIDs can be found in the registry under HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Desktop\NameSpace
John

said this on Tuesday, September 8th 2009 7:30 pm

It works, but much slower than when I just run explorer and it opens libraries.
kyle

said this on Wednesday, May 20th 2009 9:32 pm

thanks so much! you are the only one who has posted this correctly.

other sites are posting both codes together:

/root, ::{20D04FE0-3AEA-1069-A2D8-08002B30309D}

where root makes it open my computer, but any drives open in a new window

{20D04FE0-3AEA-1069-A2D8-08002B30309D} makes it open a regular my computer window, that opens drives in the same window.

Thank you!!
Xander

said this on Thursday, May 7th 2009 4:12 am

Many thanks. Just working on Win7RC and that was the first thing that was actually bugging me. (Next to get rid of any ‘homegroup’ stuff)
Bzium

said this on Thursday, April 2nd 2009 12:56 am

THANKS A LOT…
Saeed

said this on Wednesday, March 18th 2009 5:21 pm

Thanks a bunch, I was looking for this.
David

said this on Saturday, February 7th 2009 10:41 pm

Unfortunately, the shift-right-click trick appears to work only when there are no active instances of the application associated with the shortcut. Otherwise, the result is a Restore/Move/Size/Minimize/Maximize menu. If you have, say, a long copy operation going so that Explorer is already running, you are locked out of being able to access the shortcut for the entire duration (even if you have the folder properties set to allow Explorer to launch a separate process for each folder). In fact, this is what is blocking me from changing the Explorer default folder right now.
Jeremy

said this on Sunday, January 25th 2009 10:14 pm

Great tip – thanks very much (also didn’t know that right click and shift acted as the former right click behavior – thanks!).