Techno Tips n' Trixx

Make the Windows XP Favorites menu more useful in Windows Explorer

Your favorite menu just got better at dealing with your Favorites. This shortcut will let you cut through the maze of folders on your Windows XP machine running Windows Explorer. Note: This tip applies to both Windows XP Professional and Home.
Similar to Internet Explorer, the Favorites menu in Windows XP appears in Windows Explorer. This makes it easy for you to access the Internet from within Windows Explorer. However, it really serves no other purpose in Windows Explorer—even though it has the potential to do so much more.
You can make hard disk and network navigation much easier and more efficient if you use the Favorites menu as a place to keep shortcuts to deeply nested folders on your hard disk, as well as to network drives you access frequently. Doing so just takes a bit of rethinking about how you use and organize the Favorites menu.
Now, anytime you want to perform a copy or paste operation, all you have to do is press the buttons that you reassigned. Likewise for a paste-only operation.
Here's how.

1. Press [Windows]R to access the Run dialog box, type Favorites in the Open text box, and click OK to open the Favorites folder in Windows Explorer.
2. Use the Make A New Folder command in the File And Folder Tasks pane to create three new folders, naming them Internet, Local Folders, and Network Folders.
3. Move all of your Internet links, except the folder titled Links, into the newly created Internet folder.
4. Navigate to some of the deeply nested folders on your hard disk that you access frequently and use the Add To Favorites command on the Favorites menu to create links in the Local Folders folder.
5. Navigate to some of the network shares that you access frequently and use the Add To Favorites command to create links in the Network Folders folder.

Now, when you're in Windows Explorer you can use the Local Folders and Network Folders shortcuts on the Favorites menu to make quick work of your regular hard disk and network navigation.