With the recently released version 0.5 of Winaero Tweaker, you can customize folders present inside This PC/Computer location of Windows 10, Windows 8.1, Windows 8 and Windows 7. With the help of my app, you can also remove any of the predefined folders like Desktop, Videos, Pictures etc or place any custom folder there. Let's see how this feature works.
In Winaero Tweaker 0.5, there is a new option under Appearance - Customize This PC folders. It looks like this in my fresh install of Windows 10:
It shows the default set of folders which matches the picture of my This PC folder:
Here is how you can customize the folder set.
Remove This PC folders
First, let's remove the folders which you do not use. For me, this includes Videos, Pictures and Music. I store such files in different locations so I don't need them inside This PC.
To remove the above mentioned folders all at once, press and hold the Ctrl key on the keyboard and select the desired folders with the mouse, so they will become selected:
Now, just press the button Remove selected on the 'Customize This PC folders' page and you are done:
Re-open the This PC folder to see the changes:
Add custom folders to This PC
Now, let's add a custom folder, for example, the Screenshots folder instead of the Pictures folder. Click Add custom folder to get this dialog:
Under Select folder, use the Browse button to find the desired folder. In my case, it is %userprofile%\Pictures\Screenshots:
Under Display as, type the desired name for the folder. The name you type here will be visible inside This PC:
Finally, browse for the desired icon in the Folder icon section. By default, it is set to a plain folder icon.
Press "Add Folder" and you are done:
Add shell locations to This PC
Besides regular folders, you can add special shell locations to This PC. For example, let's add the popular God Mode shell location, which displays all Control Panel settings in one big list.
You need to press the Add Shell Location button in the 'Customize This PC folders' section of Winaero Tweaker. In the next dialog, you will see a long list of available shell locations on your computer. These include a number of hidden shell locations you might have never seen and almost all the Control Panel applets. Here, you need to pick one to add it to make it visible in This PC.
So, in our case we need to find the All Tasks item and click the Add button as shown below:
You can tick one or more items in the list, and all of them will be added to This PC one by one.
Restore the default folder set in This PC
If you decide to restore the default folder set in This PC, use the button "Reset this page to defaults" located on the toolbar. Once you click it, the default folders will be restored and all custom folders will be removed:
That's it.
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Awesome job yet again. Thanks for all you do
Thank you for your kind words Rick.
I’ve been waiting for this feature, thanks for adding it I’m loving it.
when i add custom folders for Desktop, Documents, Downloads, Music, Pictures, Videos, And Remove Originals
(to change there icons) File Explorer Lags like Crazy Any Advice
Cannot confirm or reproduce this behavior here.
It may depends on which exactly folders you added there and what the file explorer is trying to do with them.
Are those new folders in index? What if you add your custom folders to the Windows Search index?
I’ve had this exact same issue, specifically when I delete the “My Documents” folder and attempt to re-add it to change the icon. The File Explorer grinds to a halt and eventually crashes.
I just received a new Win 10 laptop and when I select “Customize This PC Folders” I see no choices on the right panel. Nothing shows (Music, documents, video, etc.) nor do I have any buttons to select anything. This worked on my old Win 10 laptop. I am out of ideas on what to try.
Any help will be appreciated.
I have a 4K laptop and I am thinking that the resolution is preventing me from seeing anything on the right side. Is this a known issue? I saw someone on the PC Tweaker page was thinking the same thing.
Add custom folders to this pc has no place to click to add folders; it appears to be running off the screen, but there is no slider bar at the bottom and reducing the resolution of the display settings makes no difference.
Using Windows 10 1803 version;
winaero tweaker 0.12.0.0
Dell xp 9370
Could you please provide a screenshot? Thank you in advance.
After latest Windows update .329 does not work anymore. Access to CLSID key denied.
How do you customize the “This PC” text itself? I want to have that read “This PC (%COMPUTERNAME%)” on all the machines on my domain.
First of all, I want to say I appreciate the work that was put into the WinAero Tweaker, it really is an essential tool for every new build.
However, I noticed an issue when attempting to customize This PC that others may have problems with as well.
When mapping a User folder to ‘This PC’, explorer.exe seems to use a ton of memory. It starts at the normal size and increases over a couple of days and caps out at about 1.3GB or so in my case. I’ve noticed this behavior on two seperate Windows 10 installs running different builds. Removing just the User folder fixes the problem. Could this be an indexing issue of some kind?
Thanks,
Indexing has its own process. This is some other bug in the shell.
I have the same issue here. Windows 10 version 1909 (build 18363.815).
would you mind showing us how to do it manually? also can you please add an option to just hide the folders in the navigation pane but not in the main “this pc” folder/screen-thing?