Customizing Windows 7 Save/Open Dialog Sidebar Links

I just installed an extremely useful utility which was mentioned in a thread over at the excellent SevenForums.com site.  It allows you to change the default links which show up in the left sidebar in the Open and Save dialog windows.  By default, the left sidebar for Open and Save dialogs contains the following five links:

Recent Places
Desktop
Libraries
Computer
Network

What is annoying about this is the conspicuous lack of a link for the most obvious place that anyone would want to save to or open an item from: their My Documents folder.  Another obvious one would have been the user’s home folder (one directory above the My Documents folder), which contains the My Music, My Pictures, My Videos and other folders.

This problem is solved with the following utility: Simpli Software’s Places Utility.  With it, you can customize the 5 slots which occupy the left sidebar with whatever links you want.  One trick I will mention that is necessary for getting it to work is that the utility must be run as Administrator.  Even if your regular user has administrative privileges, it is not enough to make the changes to the system.  You must right-click on the utility’s icon and select “Run as Administrator” to run it.


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