XP Annoyance

[vakkotaur]

Windows Explorer in XP, or whatever XP calls the file manager, is trying to be helpful. That means it is really being annoying. On the desktop is a shortcut for "Documents" that opens the file manager to a documents directory. This directory is, however, not the one I really want. I want C:\home\neubauer instead.

I figured I'd just change the shortcut and give it the properties I want. It almost worked. It will give me direct access to C:\home\neubauer\ BUT that's now seemingly a ghost of the real thing. I'm not really there in the directory tree where I can, if I want to, easily jump to another directory, like C:\usr\bin or some other that I want to get to fast from time to time.

Instead of doing what I want, the system is trying to guess what I need and getting it wrong. It wants to be helpful in the worst way. And it is that: helpful in the worst way. I don't want this incompetent help. I want it to get out of my way. The Win95 box's Windows Explorer comes up at C: and shows the whole directory tree. That is acceptable. At least I can navigate directly from there without having to go through the extra step of clicking a "Folders" button. Even Windows 2000 got it right. But XP just had to go improve things the Microsoft way. The result: it sucks.

I've put up with this silly XP behavior for a few weeks now and my patience is running out. Anyone know how, or even if, the XP file manager can be whacked into doing the right thing? I haven't looked into replacement file managers just yet, but it may come to that.

Comments

[shelbystripes.livejournal.com]

You can't do the "Apply to All Folders" setting and have it save that from the My Documents icon, for some reason. The My Documents shortcut is rather stubborn. If you make the Windows Explorer quicklaunch icon as I described earlier, and then set View -> Explorer Bar -> Folders, and then go hit "Apply to all Folders" and OK, then when you click on the Windows Explorer quicklaunch icon, it should give you Explorer with the Folders toolbar every time.

[vakkotaur.livejournal.com]

You can't do the "Apply to All Folders" setting and have it save that from the My Documents icon, for some reason. The My Documents shortcut is rather stubborn.

Bloody Hell. And they wonder why people hate them? Well, something more to try tomorrow. Damn I hate all this stupid hoop-jumping.

Okkay, WTH is the "quick-launch" thing?

[shelbystripes.livejournal.com]

Oh, the "quick-launch menu" is that little group of icons to the right of the Start bar. If you make a Windows Explorer icon (or drag it from the Accessories submenu in the Start menu), and drag it down and drop it between the icons on the quick-launch menu, it'll leave the icon there, as a quick-launch icon. Then you can just move your mouse down there and click on the icon and Explorer should pop up (and once you've opened Explorer that way and saved the Folders menu setting, it should pop up with the Folders display that you want).

[vakkotaur.livejournal.com]

I dragged the icon from Accessories to the "quick-launch" area. It made the link. I opened Windows Explorer with that link. I change it to how I want thing to look at startup. I did the "Apply this folder's setting to all folders" and closed Explorer. I used the quick-launch link to open it again. And got a little bit closer. This time the directory tree is at least there, though it still insists on starting with the silly Documents folder rather than C:\ or even "This computer" (I refuse to leave it named "my"). I suppose it's progress, in "settle for" kind of way.

Bah, dammit! I tried to pull that link onto the desktop and it just went *poof*... and the link is no longer in the Accessories menu. Hrm. Making a copy of explorer.exe and giving it a different name (DUPEexploree.exe) and making a shortcut to it does the same thing.

Is there such a thing as a command-switch to tell it where to open?

[shelbystripes.livejournal.com]

As far as I can tell, that's the best that can be done... Windows Explorer always spawns opened to "My Documents", and you just have to click through to get to C:.

Not quite what you were hoping for, but closer, I hope.