Favorites keyboard shortcuts for Explorer in Windows 7 [closed]

Question

In Windows XP, I had several folder saved as favorites in Windows Explorer, and could do Alt+A, 'letter' to quickly navigate to a favorite starting with 'letter' (for example, with a favorite named 'logs' pointing to C:\blah\blah\logs, Alt+A,L would immediately take me to the logs directory).

In Windows 7, they removed the Favorites menu bar, but added a listing in the navigation pane.
I've been trying to find a simple keyboard shortcut to quickly navigate to frequently used locations. Alt+D,F4 is the best I've found so far, but it requires actually looking through a list.

Answer 1

You could try adding your Favorites to the Start Menu (right click Start Button > Properties > Start Menu tab > Customise).

Then you have to press WinKey, Right Arrow, F, Right Arrow, to start navigating your Favorites.

It's not ideal, but you could use some macro software, like AutoHotKey or AutoIT, to map it to a single key combo.

Answer 2

Another solution that works for me:

1. Pin Windows Explorer to the taskbar in the left-most position.
2. Pin your favorite folders to Windows Explorer.
3. Press ⊞ Win + Alt + 1 (or other numbers according to the location of your pinned Windows Explorer on the taskbar).
4. Press the first letter of your favorite letter followed by Enter.

Answer 3

If you are happy for them to open in a new Explorer window then I highly recommend AutoHotkey. It's very powerful but fairly easy to use.

Using a script created by AutoHotkey you can map nearly any key combination to open any program or file/folder.

For example, I have Ctrl + Alt + M set to open My Documents and ⊞ Win + F to open or switch to Firefox.