Win7 Trivia

One of the fun parts - I say with gritted teeth- about using a new operating system is learning how to make it do the things that you like to do. Forget the new and wonderful things, unless one or two of them caught your eye -- you want to be able to do things the way that you know how to do them. (I wonder sometimes if Microsoft people just don't understand that, or if they think we're in the business of inventing the future!) To be fair, when I was a computer systems guy, we'd say the same things about our customers.

One of the things I had set up on my Windows XP PC was a pointer on my task bar aimed at my recipes folder. Click it, and Windows would know that it should start Explorer to open and display the folder. Surely, with all of its shortcuts this and pin to task bars that in Windows 7, this would be possible? Uh, no. You can shortcut programs, not folders. But this guy found a way. And it's relatively simple.

On the desktop, create a shortcut to the folder.
In the box with the path name (like C:Recipes), put the word Explorer and a space in front of the path name.
Hit next and give the shortcut a name.
Now tell Win 7 to pin the shortcut to the task bar.
Thats it.

Best I can figure, this works because it's no longer 'really' a shortcut to the folder; it's a shortcut to the Explorer program -- but you're giving it a parameter that says 'When you start, open this folder'.

Neat.