File Explorer wont expand to folder

jro11 · Nov 30, 2023

In the same vein, but insufferably less important:

Is it still possible to post a desktop shortcut to "This PC"? That was a sensible and reasonable location to display, since it was the root to everywhere. But now, where did it go?

Now it seems there are no directory locations 'higher' than Desktop, (Desktop used to be that place everyone left the detritus, the debris, the flotsam and jetsum of momentarily relevant shortcuts and file/folder links.) Now, it's as 'high' as you can get in the directory structure.

What does it mean when we're being given the digital-space, but not the ability to structure and arrange, the digital-landscape on which we live and operate?

hdmi · Nov 30, 2023

jro11 said:
In the same vein, but insufferably less important:

Is it still possible to post a desktop shortcut to "This PC"? That was a sensible and reasonable location to display, since it was the root to everywhere. But now, where did it go?

Now it seems there are no directory locations 'higher' than Desktop, (Desktop used to be that place everyone left the detritus, the debris, the flotsam and jetsum of momentarily relevant shortcuts and file/folder links.) Now, it's as 'high' as you can get in the directory structure.

What does it mean when we're being given the digital-space, but not the ability to structure and arrange, the digital-landscape on which we live and operate?

Create This PC Shortcut in Windows 10

How to Create a This PC Shortcut in Windows 10

www.tenforums.com

glasskuter · Nov 30, 2023

If you had rather File Explorer open to This PC rather than quick access, on the ribbon, select See more > Options > Open File Explorer to:. Then select This PC > Apply.

Jelnet · Dec 1, 2023

Hi folks - I think I just made a little discovery (please read on)...

antspants said:
For me, the links (pins) at the top left of Explorer always jumped down to the physical folder structure...

Yes, this is how I remember it ... and guess what, I switched on the "Show all folders" option in the View tab and Voila! now the Quick Pins are working exactly as you describe above, here's the setting:

hdmi said:
Pinned folders also appear in the jumplist of File Explorer (i.e. the menu that appears when you right click on the File Explorer icon that is visible on the taskbar). ...

Open-Shell gives the option to choose a Windows 7 layout/style for the Start Menu...

Weirdly on my machine, following the jumplist links expanded the folders (or rather opened the folders under Users), even before the change above. I actually realised I had already been using Open Shell (but I was confused as I thought is was Classic Shell but I must have forgotten the name change or change of developer), but thanks, as your mention of it prompted me to update it and I wasn't aware of the Classic Explorer) and thanks for the Win 10 Ribbon tip in ExplorerPatcher!

Anyway, thanks all, what a great community!

antspants · Dec 1, 2023

Jelnet said:
Anyway, thanks all, what a great community!

Indeed.

I must try what you mentioned because the truth is I actually started turning that off, on install. Cheers, will get back soon.

AndreTen · Dec 1, 2023

Turning on "Show all folders" have been discussed many times, and is kind of solution to many. Not me. I hate the mess in the Navigation pane that this introduces.. double folders, etc.

antspants · Dec 1, 2023

AndreTen said:
Turning on "Show all folders" have been discussed many times, and is kind of solution to many. Not me. I hate the mess in the Navigation pane that this introduces.. double folders, etc.

Didn’t work for me either

hdmi · Dec 1, 2023

Jelnet said:
Hi folks - I think I just made a little discovery (please read on)...

Yes, this is how I remember it ... and guess what, I switched on the "Show all folders" option in the View tab and Voila! now the Quick Pins are working exactly as you describe above, here's the setting:

View attachment 79599

Weirdly on my machine, following the jumplist links expanded the folders (or rather opened the folders under Users), even before the change above. I actually realised I had already been using Open Shell (but I was confused as I thought is was Classic Shell but I must have forgotten the name change or change of developer), but thanks, as your mention of it prompted me to update it and I wasn't aware of the Classic Explorer) and thanks for the Win 10 Ribbon tip in ExplorerPatcher!

Anyway, thanks all, what a great community!

If the Expand to open folder checkbox is checked, then when you click on a pinned folder item under Home (Quick Access), the selection in the Navigation Pane automatically moves to the folder location that is associated with it inside the tree that appears — and that automatically expands to this same folder location — under This PC. Whereas, if the Expand to open folder checkbox is unchecked, clicking on a pinned folder item under Home merely causes that pinned folder to be selected under Home.

jro11 · Dec 1, 2023

AND LOOK AT THAT!!!
There's a Show This PC as well!!

jro11 · Dec 1, 2023

Open-Shell gives the option to choose a Windows 7 layout/style for the Start Menu...

Where's Open Shell?
(I wonder if the Win7 Start Menu looks like the Win10 Start Menu looks... Damn, I shouldn't have gotten rid of the Win7 machine...)

hdmi · Dec 1, 2023

jro11 said:
Where's Open Shell?

GitHub - Open-Shell/Open-Shell-Menu: Classic Shell Reborn.

Classic Shell Reborn. Contribute to Open-Shell/Open-Shell-Menu development by creating an account on GitHub.

github.com

geobrick · Feb 18, 2024

Jelnet said:
Hi folks - I think I just made a little discovery (please read on)...

Yes, this is how I remember it ... and guess what, I switched on the "Show all folders" option in the View tab and Voila! now the Quick Pins are working exactly as you describe above, here's the setting:

View attachment 79599

Weirdly on my machine, following the jumplist links expanded the folders (or rather opened the folders under Users), even before the change above. I actually realised I had already been using Open Shell (but I was confused as I thought is was Classic Shell but I must have forgotten the name change or change of developer), but thanks, as your mention of it prompted me to update it and I wasn't aware of the Classic Explorer) and thanks for the Win 10 Ribbon tip in ExplorerPatcher!

Anyway, thanks all, what a great community!

This worked for me. The folders now expand to the open folder (like you think it would by only selecting Expand to open folder) but by also clicking Show all folders, it seems to behave like it used to.
One interesting note. For me, before I implemented 'Show all folders', my One Drive folders were the only folders behaving as expected and would expand to the open folder.

gmnenad · Oct 20, 2024

This is old post, but since I also had this problem and managed to find solution, maybe it can help someone. Few notes:
1) I had same problem as OP - shortcuts with `explorer C:\Downloads` would not expand Downloads folder in left pane on initial open
2) it used to work and stopped working right after I uninstalled OneDrive (!) - it may or may not be related (seems many people here having this issue also uninstalled OneDrive)
3) no suggestion from this thread solved issue for me
4) I found that it works for SOME of my folders but not for other ... even if they have same security and other attributes

And last point finally lead me to discovery: initial expansion does not work if you do not have any subfolder in that folder !

Specifically, it does not work if there is nothing for explorer to show in left pane under that initial folder. So if you create subfolder ( eg `C:\Downloads\old\`) it will work. Unfortunately it will not work if you hide that folder, since then explorer does not show it in left pane either, and you are back at starting issue. But it also work if you nave any ZIP or archive in folder since explorer shows them too in left pane (unless you disabled ZIPs from showing in left pane). I do not know if this bug is related to OneDrive or not but I did not have this issue before uninstalling OneDrive. I did not found way to fix that bug, but workaround is clear:

TL;DR: ensure that you have subfolder in your desired folder.

AndreTen · Oct 20, 2024

MS is slowly fixing this..
Explorer (Windows 11 24H2) is expanding to current folder for most of the folders. Still depends where you start from - clicking on folder in the main window responds different as clicking on navigation pane or shortcut..

But it's getting (back) there after a year or so

hdmi · Oct 20, 2024

AndreTen said:
MS is slowly fixing this..

I believe you. (But I am not holding my breath either..)

Berton · Oct 20, 2024

If I understand the situation correctly my Downloads folder also does not expand the Notification panel but that is for the entry above This PC but works perfectly in C:\Users\USERNAME\Documents. Anything I see above This PC in the Navigation pane are merely shortcuts to the actual item, can be seen on right-click and Properties. see the path.

gmnenad · Oct 21, 2024

AndreTen said:
MS is slowly fixing this..
Explorer (Windows 11 24H2) is expanding to current folder for most of the folders. Still depends where you start from - clicking on folder in the main window responds different as clicking on navigation pane or shortcut..

I did not have problems with explorer expanding folders when changing to another folder from inside explorer. As usual, in left/navigation pane it is enough to single click to change folder while in right/main pane you need to double click to change folder. But when you change folder explorer correctly expand/position to that folder in left pane.

Where I did have problem (same as OP) is in initial expansion not being done after I use shortcut to launch `explorer C:\Downloads`.

It may be right that, as you said, "MS is slowly fixing this". Looking at images posted by original poster it seems that he had subfolders in his initial `Downloads` folder and yet explorer did not initially expand for him. Currently (as of 10.0.26100) explorer correctly expand when my initial folder has similar content (subfolders) like original poster had - so it is possible that MS fixed one problem. But they left another, albeit more exotic, problem - it does not initially expand if there is no subfolder/ZIP in initial folder.

Berton · Oct 21, 2024

Forgot to include a screenshot yesterday showing that anything above This PC is a shortcut as noted by the pins/thumbtacks on the right of the name while those items in This PC have the small arrow on the left of the name indicating they are expandable.

HighBidder · Jan 5, 2025

"Expand to open folder" was not working for my W11 installation even after changing the setting and rebooting.
In trying to solve another "problem" of removing all the extraneous folders that Ms has added it appears that
the folder expansion began to work.

If you decide to run these registry settings first export the "HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Desktop\NameSpace" key so you can reverse the changes.

Code:

;================================================================================
; Remove explorer folders
;================================================================================


;;Remove this key. The values in this key will duplicate removable drives.
[-HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Desktop\NameSpace\DelegateFolders]

;;Remove UsersLibraries
[-HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Desktop\NameSpace\{031E4825-7B94-4dc3-B131-E946B44C8DD5}]

;;Remove SearchFolder
[-HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Desktop\NameSpace\{04731B67-D933-450a-90E6-4ACD2E9408FE}]

;;Remove IE History and Feeds Shell Data Source for Windows Search
[-HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Desktop\NameSpace\{11016101-E366-4D22-BC06-4ADA335C892B}]

;;Remove ThisPCMyMusicRegFolder
[-HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Desktop\NameSpace\{1CF1260C-4DD0-4ebb-811F-33C572699FDE}]

;;Remove ControlPanelHome
[-HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Desktop\NameSpace\{26EE0668-A00A-44D7-9371-BEB064C98683}]

;;Remove ThisPCMyPicturesRegFolder
[-HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Desktop\NameSpace\{3ADD1653-EB32-4cb0-BBD7-DFA0ABB5ACCA}]

;;Remove Public folder
[-HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Desktop\NameSpace\{4336a54d-038b-4685-ab02-99bb52d3fb8b}]

;;Remove ControlPanelStartupPage
[-HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Desktop\NameSpace\{5399E694-6CE5-4D6C-8FCE-1D8870FDCBA0}]

;;Remove UsersFiles
[-HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Desktop\NameSpace\{59031a47-3f72-44a7-89c5-5595fe6b30ee}]

;;Remove MAPI Folder
[-HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Desktop\NameSpace\{89D83576-6BD1-4c86-9454-BEB04E94C819}]

;;Remove Search Home
[-HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Desktop\NameSpace\{9343812e-1c37-4a49-a12e-4b2d810d956b}]

;;Remove StartMenuLauncherProviderFolder
[-HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Desktop\NameSpace\{98F275B4-4FFF-11E0-89E2-7B86DFD72085}]

;;Remove StartMenuCommandingProviderFolder
[-HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Desktop\NameSpace\{a00ee528-ebd9-48b8-944a-8942113d46ac}]

;;Remove ThisPCMyVideosRegFolder
[-HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Desktop\NameSpace\{A0953C92-50DC-43bf-BE83-3742FED03C9C}]

;;Remove CSC Folder
[-HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Desktop\NameSpace\{BD7A2E7B-21CB-41b2-A086-B309680C6B7E}]

;;Remove StartMenuPathCompleteProviderFolder
[-HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Desktop\NameSpace\{e345f35f-9397-435c-8f95-4e922c26259e}]

;;Remove e88865ea-0e1c-4e20-9aa6-edcd0212c87c
[-HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Desktop\NameSpace\{e88865ea-0e1c-4e20-9aa6-edcd0212c87c}]

;;Remove Computers and Devices
[-HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Desktop\NameSpace\{F02C1A0D-BE21-4350-88B0-7367FC96EF3C}]

;;Remove This Device Folder
[-HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Desktop\NameSpace\{f8278c54-a712-415b-b593-b77a2be0dda9}]

;;Remove MSGraphHomeFolder
[-HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Desktop\NameSpace\{f874310e-b6b7-47dc-bc84-b9e6b38f5903}]

antspants · Jan 5, 2025

HighBidder said:
If you decide to run these registry settings…

Nope. Not a chance.

File Explorer wont expand to folder

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