Where has the normal address bar drop down arrow gone?

In windows 2000 and XP the drop down arrow at the right of the address bar at
the top of the window would link you to all kinds of useful places including
all of your hard drives, control panel, common folders and, most usefully,
removable drives such as a USB flash drive, allowing you to quickly do a
Ctrl+C on a file and naviagte to the drive, then Ctrl+V to copy over to it.

In Vista however, the drop down arrow just gives me a bunch of websites and
other stuff I have recently looked at, which is useless. I want to know if
there is a way to get the same drop down menu with all the useful stuff on
that existed in win XP and 2000.

Can anyone help?

Hi, Adam.

It would help us help you if you tell us WHICH window you are looking at and
asking about.

In Windows Explorer, click Organize | Layout and turn on the Navigation
pane, which appears at the left of the screen. Click Folders at the bottom
of this pane to expand it into the familiar tree, with Desktop at the top.
Personally, I seldom look in the top items here, but click on Computer, then
Drive C:. If you hover the mouse over a drive, you should see a triangular
arrow indicating that there are subfolders here. Click on the triangle to
see the directory of that drive in the Navigation pane. Or click on the
drive name to open that directory in the Details pane.

This Windows Explorer window is highly customizable. Spend some time
exploring here and you should be able to tailor it to your tastes. Some of
the settings can also be reached from Control Panel | Folder Options | View,
much like in WinXP. One useful setting is Always show menus; this shows the
Menu bar in Explorer, in addition to the Toolbar.

RC
--
R. C. White, CPA
San Marcos, TX
rc@xxxxxx
Microsoft Windows MVP
(Running Windows Live Mail beta 2 in Vista Ultimate x64 SP1 beta v.275)

"Adam_N" <AdamN@xxxxxx> wrote in message
news:25BEB481-05DC-44FB-A481-AFB373E0F14C@xxxxxx

R C White's reply discussed HOW to find root drive info in a folder but I'd like to ask how to get the address bar's dropdown (in any folder on desktop) to STOP showing internet sites and only show drive info. Is it Vista's way of synchronizing desktop navigating with internet navigating?

Thanks
(Maybe it's me but I think, despite all of it's advantages, Vista may have made a few too many "user friendly" changes to the point of annoying!)

EggHeadCafe - .NET Developer Portal of Choice
http://www.eggheadcafe.com

Dear Kathy Hewett,
It seems that you want to know the same thing as me! Thank you for writing
out more clearly than I could manage! I though I had been quite clear, but
never mind. Hopefully someone will know the answer!

Surely everyone should find it a lot more useful to have a list of
drives/common folders than your browser history? I thought this version of
windows was supposed to be removing the ties between Windows Explorer and IE
on the grounds of security?


Dear R C White,

Thank you for your reply. In my query I was referring to a standard Windows
Explorer window, from which you can browse files and folders. In XP, the My
Computer and Control Panel windows also open in this type of window, with the
drop down menu of drives and useful folder locations available to take you
where ever on your machine you need to go.


"Kathy Hewett" wrote:

Hi Adam_N,

Perhaps you might find something that will give you what you are looking for in this tutorial.

Windows Explorer Address Bar

Hope it helps,
Shawn

Hi Adam,
Well, I continue to be frustrated with Vista...this is just ANOTHER irritating change, causing me to navigate another learning curve. To top it off, I made the mistake of upgrading to MS Office 2007...what was I thinking?... and that only made things worse!
Thanks to Shawn's link, I identified that our desktop folder's address bar shares with IE...that's why it shows internet addresses in the dropdown. (Seems like a lot of wasted man hours just to answer that simple question, doesn't it?) It seems to me that most tutorials assume that you like all of the changes with Vista and don't wish to question basic functions.

Now...we need to find out how to, if possible, make the address bar STOP doing that.
HERE'S OUR QUESTION:
Is there a way to make the address bar in any desktop folder's address bar's drop down, show ONLY desktop (C drive) folders and NOT internet sites?
OR...
Is there a way to STOP showing internet sites in any desktop folder's address bar's drop down list?

EggHeadCafe - .NET Developer Portal of Choice
http://www.eggheadcafe.com

Kathy,

Since IE7 and Windows Explorer share the same address bar, ther is no way that I am aware of. That was the way the address bar in Vista was designed.

Sorry,
Shawn

"brink" <brink.2z89s1@xxxxxx-mx.forums.net> wrote in message
news:brink.2z89s1@xxxxxx-mx.forums.net... Okay, don't take this as an insult, but I'm going to assume that no one has
noticed the right-pointing arrows next to the folder names in the address
bar.

Click on one of these to see all sub-folders located in that particular
folder . . . there is also, to the far-left, a "top-level" icon that will
give you access to the Computer "folder" all shared folders, Control Panel,
etc.

After a short learning curve I've found this system to be much more
intuitive, and easier to navigate than the XP style drop-down menu/address
bar.

YMMV

Mic

Mic,

No offense taken, but it is included in the tutorial link I posted above.

Windows Explorer Address Bar

Shawn

"brink" <brink.2zcm17@xxxxxx-mx.forums.net> wrote in message
news:brink.2zcm17@xxxxxx-mx.forums.net... Sorry, didn't follow the link (though I do have that site bookmarked) so I
wasn't aware.

I've found that often when a link is given as, or as part of, an answer, the
question is still asked again and again, even if the link clearly answers
the aforementioned question.

Again, no offense intended, just something I noticed. People are lazy about
looking for answers on their own and when they post to a group such as this,
will often ignore, or only skim through, links posted so I tend to try to
answer as completely as possible in the hopes that the question will be
sufficiently answered without the need for a link, as the link is often
ignored . . . etc . . . I can loop this forever. :-)

Mic