Change The Default Windows Explorer Start Page

Martin | Nov 17, 2009 | Comments

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The Windows 7 Library view is opening whenever a user clicks on a Windows Explorer shortcut in Windows 7. Libraries are fine but that’s probably not the location that most users want to start their file browsing session in. The following article explains how to change the default Windows Explorer page to another start page instead, something that most Windows 7 users will be more comfortable with.

The most prominent location to open a new Windows Explorer window is from it’s taskbar icon which is permanently pinned there. The icon itself is merely a shortcut to Windows Explorer which means that we have to edit the shortcut so that it opens up Windows Explorer with another default location.

This is done by right-clicking the Windows Explorer icon which opens the jumplist listing the most recent Explorer windows that have been opened by the user. Another right-click on Windows Explorer in the jumplist and the selection of Properties will load the menu where the default Windows Explorer page can be changed.

windows explorer

The shortcut tab in the Windows Explorer Properties will be opened after performing that operation. All we need to do is to edit the Target field in that menu to change the default Windows Explorer start page.

windows explorer start page

My Computer – %SystemRoot%\explorer.exe /E,::{20D04FE0-3AEA-1069-A2D8-08002B30309D}
My Documents – %SystemRoot%\explorer.exe /N,::{450D8FBA-AD25-11D0-98A8-0800361B1103}
Network Neighborhood – %SystemRoot%\explorer.exe /N,::{208D2C60-3AEA-1069-A2D7-08002B30309D}
Any Folder – %SystemRoot%\explorer.exe folder path

To set the default Windows Explorer start page to c:\windows one would have to change the target field to %SystemRoot%\explorer.exe c:\windows.

And that’s how you change the default Windows Explorer start page to another folder or location in Windows 7. The same principle applies to the Windows Explorer shortcut in the start menu.

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