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In XP there was a MenuBar called Favorites which seemed to be based on Internet Explorer Favorites. It was fantastic because it allowed for very fast tree style navigation (if set up correctly you could navigate it using first letter keystrokes, so to access a shortcut named "videos" in a folder named "files" was as quick as Alt-A f v)

This was removed in Vista (and imo generally regressed the file explorer). This was fine because I never used it, but I'm resigned to eventually embracing the inevitability that is Windows 7.

Dealing with a single non-nested list of favourites is pretty painful to me as I have quite a lot of them. Is there a way to make a tree like favorites structure in Windows 7? My fingers are crossed.

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5 Answers 5

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Microsoft in its infinite wisdom decided in Win7 that Favorites do not need nesting.
One can include a folder in Favorites, but that points to the physical folder as-is.

I believe that the only solution is to abandon Favorites and use a library instead.
You may even name this library "Favorites".

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  • I like this workaround, +1. You can also change the icon on your new library to a star or whatever else you'd like to use: howtogeek.com/howto/6326/…
    – Sasha Chedygov
    Jul 28, 2010 at 23:19
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    Unfortunately, you can't add non-indexed locations to a library.
    – John N
    Jul 2, 2012 at 14:34
  • Indeed you can't add network folders. This is really bad design.
    – Paolo
    Jan 24, 2017 at 10:35
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No, this is impossible in File Explorer.

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A Windows Library itself apparently cannot hold either directories or Windows file shortcuts, and therefore a tree structure.

But you could use a Folder included in a Windows Library as follows. If you have (or want to have) a tree structure of actual directories and subdirectories, containing shortcuts to folders, and you want to have it "read" into the libraries, you have to:

  1. Set up your tree structure in some directory (say, c:\my_favs)
  2. Create a library (you can name it Favorites).
  3. Include the folder (c:\my_favs) into your library.
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I don't know when it was introduced on Windows 10 (I'm using Windows 10 1909), but now if you right click over 'Quick Access', select tab 'View', in the bottom you can enable 'Expand to Open Folder'. It isn't exactly what you looking for, but works similar. A little late, but hope that helps

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  • thanks for the heads up! Sounds like it was introduced on the feature update to 1909 as I'm on 1903 and don't see that option. I hope to update later tonight and have a test then!
    – fostandy
    Mar 25, 2020 at 23:44
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Yep. The sidebar thing IS a treeview. click on your drive on the left you can now navigate the tree by typing letters or by using the arrow keys.

Edit: I got modded down so I guess I should illustrate.. Looks just like a treeview to me...

enter image description here

Edit: Unless I got modded down for not addressing the favorites thing. Use libraries. Seems to be the new way they do things.

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  • Well the sidebar provides a treeview, but one that reflects the filesystem and not a user generated/maintained tree structure of favorites. Perhaps I did not fully explain in the original post, but I want to organise my favorites in a tree structure. As for libraries, I am currently using them to store some favorites but could not figure out how to make a deeply nested folder structure (e.g. have a folder development, a subfolder personal, a subfolder temp, and then a link to a folder within that - so libaries\development\personal\temp\somelink )
    – fostandy
    Nov 21, 2009 at 8:59
  • Oh lol It didn't occur to me that you could deeply nest. How most people use libraries is to keep track of various types of files on their drive. So all their music, in dls, library and friends crap can be all in one folder. It sounds like you need symbolic links (dunno if you are a linux guy). technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb896768.aspx should work for you nicely. Symlinks are like... having your files in 2 places at once.
    – Ambiwlans
    Nov 22, 2009 at 8:27
  • Thanks. I currently use the [link shell extensions][schinagl.priv.at/nt/hardlinkshellext/hardlinkshellext.html] to create such links in Windows XP. I do find them very useful, but I'm not sure what you are suggesting here. If you could demonstrate how to use these to answer the question of the original post (i.e. create a quickly tree based list of favorites in win7 with comparable navigation speed to that demonstrated in XP) I'll be happy to award you with the answer.
    – fostandy
    Nov 23, 2009 at 10:42
  • Couldn't you nest a bunch of symbolic links in a favourites folder to your various locations?
    – Ambiwlans
    Nov 23, 2009 at 12:22
  • I can't figure out how to. Assuming this was a rhetorical question and you experimented with it before suggesting it, can you provide detailed instructions on how to do this?
    – fostandy
    Mar 17, 2010 at 22:26

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