Windows

Customize The Places Bar In The Open Dialog Box In XP (Part II)

Posted by on Jul 28, 2006 | 14 Comments

In the previous installment of this article, I outlined how to create the Registry keys required to customize the Places Bar in XP. If you successfully created the keys, you are ready to learn how to add your own folders to the Places Bar.

You can add up to five different icons to the Places Bar. This is done by adding the necessary entries to the key you created earlier, as described in the steps outlined below.

  1. Click Start and click Run

  2. Type regedit.exe and click OK.
  3. Navigate to the following key:
    HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\ComDlg32\Placesbar.

  4. From the Edit menu, point to New, and click String Value.
  5. Type in Place0.
  6. Double click the string value and type in the path to the folder. For example, C:\MyFolders\MyWork.
  7. Click OK.

The folder you specified in the path will now appear in the Places Bar. Remember, you can add up to 5 places, using the String Values names Place0 (as you saw above) through to Place4. At some point you may decide that you want to restore the default icons to the Places Bar. All you have to do is delete the

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\ComDlg32

Registry key.

[tags]windows,microsoft,xp,diana huggins,places bar,open dialog box[/tags]

  • Graeme

    I tried this tweek, but nothing happens – even afer a reboot!

  • Karl

    Hi, great info, thanks! I saw a minor problem before it would work right though.
    In step 3 of Part 2:

    You must create the Place0 string in the following key:

    HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\ComDlg32\Placesbar.

    You said to place it in HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\ComDlg

    I think your line may have become truncated in the post. Hopefully mine won’t too!

    Thanks again.

    Karl

  • Karl

    Yup, it cut off the full key name, even in my post.
    Let’s try a different way:
    For anyone trying to get this done, You must create the new
    “Place0″ string in the “….Policies\ComDlg32\Placesbar” key.

    It doesn’t work if you create it in the “ComDlg” key
    (and there is no “ComDlg” key, it’s actually “ComDlg32″)

    As I said, I think her post got chopped.

  • Doug

    Thanks for the tips on adding custom folders. But is it possible to have custom folders as well as “Desktop” and “My Computer”? I can;t figure out the “path” for these items. Thanks

  • Paul

    Here is the settings for adding the desktop and the network neighbourhood into the my places.

    Net Neighbourhood:
    Create a new double word (DWORD) entry in the Placesbar key named
    ‘PlaceX’ where X is the place number 0 – 4.
    Edit the value to 12 (in HEX)

    Desktop:
    Create a new double word (DWORD) entry in the Placesbar key named
    ‘PlaceX’ where X is the place number 0 – 4.
    Edit the value to 0 (in HEX)

    The rest you just enter the file path, but I’m sure you got that.

    YOu can also use the microsoft treakUI program. That allows you to do it via a windows app.

    Hope this helps.

    Paul

  • Paul

    More…

    I started playing with this places DWord and here are the different values:

    0 ~ Desktop
    1 ~ Internet Explorer
    2 ~ Programs
    3 ~ Control Panel
    4 ~ Printers & Faxes
    5 ~ My Documents
    6 ~ Favourites
    7 ~ Startup
    8 ~ My Recent Documents
    9 ~ Send To
    10 ~ Desktop (with normal folder icon)
    11 ~ My Computer
    12 ~ My Network Places
    13 ~ NetHood folder
    14 ~ Fonts Folder
    15 ~ Templates
    16 ~ All Users \ Start Menu
    17 ~ All Users \ Start Menu \ Programs
    18 ~ Net Neighbourhood
    19 ~ Desktop (with normal folder icon)
    20 ~ Temporary Internet Folders

    In the above unless specified it uses the standard icon (eg for desktop it uses the desktop icon not a folder icon called desktop)

    And the rest are for you all to find.

    Paul

  • Melllvar

    i have been looking for this tweak for a while. thank you for the post and all the comments. its worth mentioning that this will change the folders in open dialog boxes as well as save boxes.

  • Jon Smith

    Tweak UI is freeware that can do this and much more

    http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/downloads/powertoys/xppowertoys.mspx

  • Zaman Bakshi
  • Xen

    Is there any way to modify ComDlg like it’s done with the Office Open/Save? The Office registry hack lets you put Name & Path in as values, so that “Xen’s pics” shows up in Places rather than “z:\images”.

  • http://www.zero1productions.com Jive

    Is there a way to have more than 5 places in the placebar? How is this accomplished if possible?

  • Murdock

    FYI while in the “Open” dialog box, simply select the folder you want then click “Tools” at the upper right and “Add to my places”

    No reg hacking, no tweaks, no need for tweakui.

  • Assassin

    Thanks very much for this wonderfully detailed and easy to learn step-by-step article, Diana Huggins. Your article really made it very clear and easy to personalise my PC! :D

    Also thanks to Paul for providing us with different DWORD values for different system locations. I was thinking that what if I wanted to keep the Desktop and My Computer folders in the Places Bar too, and pop came his comment!

    Thanx very much! :D

  • Matt

    I did not have to create the Placesbar folder, it was already there. When I changed the “Value data” for Place0, Place1, etc, nothing happened. I rebooted and still nothing happened. Any thoughts?

    Thanks!