Vista - Navigation Pane in Vista Windows Explorer

What I'd like to do is turn off the 'Folder' (Tree) pane

Hi AvatarOfTheShip,

Welcome to Vista Forums.

Well, turning of the Navigation Pane would certainely turn off the Folder tree.

If you do not want to turn the Navigation Pane off, then you could move the mouse pointer over the live between Favorite Links and Folders until it turns into a double pointed arrow. Just press and hold the left mouse button to drag the Folders pane line down to the bottom to hide it. This will leave just the Favorite Links part.

Hope this helps,
Shawn

Hi Brink, thanks - and yes, you're right, that would sort of hit the spot. It's just that it seems as if Microsoft had a really nice idea to redesign Explorer, and right at the end someone's jumped up out of their seat and cried in a loud and piercing voice: "They'll never buy not having a tree view!" Soon the room was in panic and the tree view was clumsily and inelegantly welded and bolted back on. Does anyone else think this or am I alone wise in my generation?

LOL, that sounds very plausible.

Well, at least we can adjust the size or hide the Favorite Links and Folders tree, or just turn the whole thing off.

yes, I do like the Favorites pane

You can try some useful things to extend its use

Simple fix.....but frustrating the hell out of me because I didn't know what I was looking for!

Thanx!

Your welcome Vincent, and welcome to Vista Forums.

Shanw

Is there any way to completely turn off or remove the Navigation Pane? I would be ok with removing it as an option from the registry or deleting system files, if I knew exactly which could be removed safely, as I never use it.

I've turned the annoying thing off numerous times, and it stays off if I navigate to the folder either through opening Computer or typing the path directly into the Start:Run prompt. But if I get to the folder from an application's "Show In Explorer" command, the Navigation Pane is automatically turned on again.

There's something else strange about that method as well that leads me to believe IE is being asked to perform the open or is at least involved. I was getting an error every time I opened a new IE window. I got the same error when opening folders in that method. After fixing the error in IE, both went away.