Windows 10 Quick Tips – Folders 1 & 2

Folders

Microsoft used to call Folders Directories, but no longer. Now they are Folders, and sub-folders, and forever shall be unless of course, they aren’t. You never know what Microsoft will do regarding its naming conventions. You can do things with Folders in Windows 10 that you weren’t able to in earlier versions. You can pin them to the Taskbar, for example, and you can change the appearance of their individual icons. The latter, which I will demonstrate later, can help you find them easily among a long list of other Folders. There is nothing new here but not everyone knows how to do these things and they can be quite helpful. This week’s Quick Tips article will show you how to accomplish the above-mentioned cute tricks. Read on…

#1 Pin Folders To The Taskbar

Create Desktop Shortcut

1. Open File Explorer
2. Right-click on any folder you would like to Pin to Taskbar
3. In the menu that appears, choose Send to
4. In the next menu, choose Desktop (create shortcut)

It should look something like this:

Change Shortcut Properties

You should now have a shortcut to the chosen folder sitting on your Desktop. In order to have the option to Pin it to your Taskbar, we have to change its properties:

1. Right-click your new Shortcut
2. In the menu that opens, choose Properties
3. Click the Shortcut Tab if it’s not already open

That should bring you here:

Add the word “explorer” to the beginning of the folder path in the Target box. Be sure to leave a space between “explorer” and the Path.

Note: If there are spaces in the path, then enclose it in quotes like this: “C:\This Path Has Spaces”.

Pin To Taskbar Option

After following the above steps, a new Pin to taskbar option appears when you right-click the shortcut. See below:

Click this and your shortcut will show up in the Taskbar and you can drag it to any position you like, just like any other Taskbar icon.

#2 Change Folder Icons

If you look at the Properties Sheet image (two above), you will notice a Change Icon… button. Changing Folder icons is a handy way of personalizing folders so they stand out in a crowded list of icons that all look alike. For example, I have a folder relegated to only Drivers, and another to Portable software. I have changed the appearance of these particular icons so they are easily spotted.

1. Click the Change Icon… button
2. In the window that opens, type imageres.dll
3. Hit ENTER

You should be looking at a window similar to this:

You can scroll through the many icons in this file until you find one you like. Click it, then click the OK button to finish the task. Please note that icons can be found in EXE files, too. It’s easy to get bogged down looking through these many thousands of icons, so may I make a recommendation? Pick one quickly and run like hell!

As always, if you have any helpful suggestions, comments or questions, please share them with us,

Richard
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