Change default folder of Windows Explorer – advanced

In my previous post Change default folder of Windows Explorer, I explained how to change the default folder of Windows Explorer to a normal path, like “C:\itexperience”. In this post, I’ll explain how to change the default folder of Windows Explorer to a more extinct folder, like Favorites.

To keep it simple, I’ll show you how to set the default folder to “Favorites“.

1. First, we need to find the Class ID of Favorites.  To find the Class ID, do the following:

1. Open Windows Explorer
2. Drag the Favorites folder to your desktop. A shortcut will be made.
   Open Notepad
3. Drag the Favorites shortcut (from your desktop) to Notepad
4. You will see a lot of garbage in Notepad. That’s OK. We are looking for the code, encapsulated by { }. In this case, you’ll find the following string: { 3 2 3 C A 6 8 0 – C 2 4 D – 4 0 9 9 – B 9 4 D – 4 4 6 D D 2 D 7 2 4 9 E }
5. Now, the last thing we need to do is remove the spaces. So we’ll end up with  {323CA680-C24D-4099-B94D-446DD2D7249E}

2. Now that we have the Class ID, we can start modifying the shortcut of Windows Explorer. Right click on the Windows Explorer shortcut and click Properties 

3. Go to the tab “Shortcut“.

4. By default, the target is %windir%\explorer.exe. Add the following text to the target:
shell:::{323CA680-C24D-4099-B94D-446DD2D7249E}
So the complete target path is:
%windir%\explorer.exe shell:::{323CA680-C24D-4099-B94D-446DD2D7249E}

5. Congratulations. You just created a Windows Explorer shortcut that has the Favorites folder as default folder! 🙂
Now, you can use the same procedure for other special locations. 

Here are some locations with the appropriate target location. It will save you some time.

• Computer: %windir%\explorer.exe ::{20D04FE0-3AEA-1069-A2D8-08002B30309D}
• Documents: %windir%\explorer.exe ::{450D8FBA-AD25-11D0-98A8-0800361B1103}
• Network: %windir%\explorer.exe ::{208D2C60-3AEA-1069-A2D7-08002B30309D}