Windows 8.1 - How To Unclutter Windows Explorer Navigation Pane
Nov 20, 2013
I've just jumped to Windows 8.1 from 7 and am trying to work out how to unclutter my windows explorer navigation pane.
The bit in question is the "This PC" - it used to just have my c:drive and other network drives, but now it has all these other network devices (security cameras, and sonos amps etc) plus also Desktop, Downloads, Music, Pictures, Videos folders (which are sort of duplicated under favourites).
Is there a setting somewhere to not show all these extra items, and just go back to showing my C:drive and mapped network drives?
Just installed 8.1 and the "This PC" section of the navigation pane in file explorer has changed. In addition to listing the disk drives, it now lists six folders. how to remove the folders from the drive list?
The Navigation Pane on the left side of Windows Explorer has six major categories from top to bottom as follows: Favorites, SkyDrive, Home Group, This PC, Libraries and Network. When I open Windows Explorer, the cursor is positioned on the Library Category. I would prefer the default cursor position to be on Favorites. I assume that there is no easy way to make this change, at least without editing the Registry somewhere.
I recently connected a SATA HDD to my computer to retrieve files from another computer (mother board died). Now I have multiple entries on my navigation pane for My Computer and C Drive. I have attached a screenshot of my Nav Pane: Click on Prints Phil, This PC and S3A7083D005(C) all get a list of the same (desktop, favorites, documents etc). C Drive got itself renamed to a string of numbers and This PC did not exist before either. My computer's name was Sneezyphil.
I upgraded from Windows 8 to Windows 8.1 two days before I plugged in the SATA HDD so there was no previous restore point unless I reinstall Win 8.1 - but looking at your threads on that issue, might multiply my problems.
I have followed all the steps in the tutorial on removing Favorites from the navigation pane.
Favorites - Add or Remove from Navigation Pane in Windows 8
The right-click solution does not work because "show favourites" option does not come up when I right click. The second solution using the folder option is not possible because there is no option to check or uncheck I have even tried with th bat. file, but no change took place.
How to change names of the folders in navigation pane in Windows 8.1 x64 under This PC category? I want to change the names which are shown in File Explorer, not actually change locations.
Any trick when you single click a item in the nav pane it will expand the tree in both the main and nav pain? The only option seems to be double click (how quaint) or the triangle (3.1 lives!!). Fyi I'm using server r2 2012/classic shell pounded back into win 7 /rant/ god U SUCK ms the feature would be known as "Run Win 8 with legacy shell" the file explorer is straight out of 8 from what I can see.
Often, but not always, the navigation pane in file explorer makes quick up/down motions and in doing so collapses the folder tree in the Library section. As a result I cannot navigate in the left panel (navigation pane) of file explorer as I am not quick enough the click on a sub-folder before the tree collapses. I have the same problem when navigating an "open file" dialogue box which can make opening a file impossible. This happens mostly when disk activity is high such as when search is indexing or my virus scanner is doing its thing.
Since I upgraded to 8.1 (x64), I am unable to hide custom made libraries in the navigation pane. The default libraries can be hidden/shown. Does a custom library have a registry entry? I'm sure its visibility is controlled by a simple value.
No, I don't have "show all folders" selected.
Incidentally, this Libraries - Move above This PC in Windows 8.1 trick creates two lists of libraries in the navigation pane.
when i make a search for directories, then i double click on the wanted directory; now i would like to navigate as normal, instead explorer keeps in the path box "search-display.." not allowing me to navigate or to expand directory tree, how can i instruct it to exit search mode and continue from that path?
I have this dark horizontal line that appears in windows explorer every time I'm in a window, It appears right at the bottom of the navigation bar, its not glaring though, just that its distracting and every time I hover around it, I See the "move" cursor which doesn't do anything. How do I get rid of this line? It was never there as at the last time I restarted my PC.
In Win 8 Windows Explorer, the preview pane seems to be able to display previews of all file types I really use except the type I use most-- eml email files. Is it possible to get the preview pane to show a preview of an eml file?
I have noticed that if I simply manually edit an eml file's extension from eml to mht-- it will be displayed in the preview pane.
I have hundreds if not thousands of eml files saved to disk. I really don't want to change all of them to mht because that eliminates email functionality of the file. Meaning, I would not be able to double-click the file, open it and respond to or forward it as an email message.
i currently can not access the available Wi-Fi networks menu. when i attempt to open the available networks pane from either the taskbar, or the settings charm, explorer restarts. i receive no error. I think the problem originated a couple of days ago. on that day, i logged on and the resolution was wrong; Windows had just completed installing an update. since then, i've reinstalled the graphic, network, and audio drivers. i've also uninstalled the latest Windows updates, as well as try and use system restore to go back about a month. no results. the only thing telling is i get an error in safe mode that says "The instruction at 0x389fac1c referenced memory at 0x0000000. The memory could not be written." i recieve this error when i attempt to open the Network connections menu from the taskbar like usual.
I went from XP to Windows 8 Pro. With XP, a pictures folder allowed the icons to represent a small version of the picture; the filmstrip option was a nice bonus.
With Windows 8, the icon, no matter what size, has a generic look to it--same for all the pictures. I enable Preview Pane, and the same thing happens. No preview of the picture on the preview pane, just a much larger generic icon.
I see screen views on the web of it actually working, but I can't get it to.
I am getting this screen always when on my Dell Laptop, I scroll from right to left. I have tried everything but nothing works. How to turn this thing off.
When I am typing it appears that there is some type of shortcut that I am hitting which then pops up that navigation bar on the right hand side (where settings, search, etc. is). I would like to disable any of these shortcuts so this doesn't happen at all when I am typing.
Windows8 navigation. Can not find familiar file directory to access files, instead apps and app store! Could some one direct me how I can turn off start screen and go back old fashion ways. Else I will have to go back to my Vista.
when I alt tab from some programs, noticed mostly when alt tabbing out of full screened/fullscreened windowed in games. The first thing is a Search Pane thing that brings me to the search function and the rest are blank.
Win 8 Enterprise x64, non local administrator user.
I can not change music's rating or other stuff from details pane. In local administrator user I can. Should I change my account type? Also the music is at external HDD.
I cannot seem to get the "taskbar and navigation properties" pane, only the "taskbar properties" pane. I am running as administrator and have upgraded from Windows 8 to Windows 8.1 on a new laptap that I have just purchased, but am still having trouble getting the "taskbar and navigation properties" when I right click the taskbar.
The "taskbar properties" only gives me three tabs ie. taskbar, jump lists and properties, but I need to access the navigation tab on the "taskbar and navigation properties" pane.
For those that want to run desktop navigation programs, please checkout Centrafuse Localizer (Google search). It connects directly to the Broadcom GNSS chip (bypasses the location platform) and provides a virtual comport for your navigation app to connect to. Tested with Streets and Trips, CoPilot, PC Navigator and many more. 100% standard NMEA 0183 output.
I wrote specifically because I wanted to use Sygic on my Asus VivoTab and couldn't.
After I update my win 8, i got all navigation, login, and search button become boxes. i already try uninstall the update, but still not fixed. Here the pic ...
I recently bought a Windows 8 tablet and I'm forced to use IE10 on it to browse the Internet because everything else is crap. I like the idea how you can swipe to the left and right to go back and forth webpages. But when info that, instead of just loading the page from a cache, the page completely reloads. It doesn't even take me the correct location of the webpage. These issues completely take away the advantage of swipe navigation.
Is there anyway to force IE not to reload the webpage completely when swiping back (don't really care about forward part)? If I could set a time period before reloading the page, that would be ideal.
BTW, It could be more noticeable because this Atom based tablet is much slower than a typical Windows 8 PC. Besides, I don't use IE on the desktop so I don't know how it performs on it. I bet it won't be as noticeable as on the tablet because it is multiple times faster than the tablet and it is connected to he Internet with a cable.
On my office network none of the computers connected to it have problems surfing the web, except my own. Pages fail to load 75% of the time, I use Google Chrome and Firefox but they both have the same problem. I've scanned my pc for malware and viruses using Malwarebytes and Bitdefender (separately of course) and they've come back clear. I've reset the tcp ip stack (a pain in Windows 8) taking full control of netsh via the regedit key (running it as admin), then wiping the wifi profile, following with a dns flush and finalizing with restarting the computer. Once restarted I can navigate the internet problem free for a few pages and then I go back to having issues. I can't reinstall Windows 8 because I don't have a disc or a partition (upgraded from Win7 to 8 pro online, which I admit was a huge mistake).
I am running on : Windows 8.1 Pro AMD Athlon 2 P320 Dual Core Processor 2.10Ghz 8.00GB RAM, 64 bit OS, x64 processor.
Right now, if I rename a file in windows explorer, or right click->create new folder (or new file), or do a bunch of other things, I don't see the result of the action (i.e., the file's name stays the same, or the new folder/file doesn't appear) until I click away to another folder, and then back to the one I did the action in.
Why is this happening, and how can I fix it? I haven't explicitly changed anything recently, though maybe an update broke something.
