Special Windows Folders You Need to Know About

Did you know about all these? 🤔

▼ Time Stamps: ▼
0:00 - Intro
0:12 - Shell:Startup
1:04 - Shell:Programs
2:34 - Shell:AppsFolder
4:20 - Shell:SendTo
6:02 - Shell:Fonts
6:55 - Taskbar Pinned Folder
7:37 - Nirsoft SpecialFoldersView

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[raymondjohnson]

Thank you ThioJoe, I kinda forgot how useful editing the "send to" folder is. I have often built song libraries onto removable storage devices and using send to vs drag and drop is so much cleaner a process.
The information you provide on this channel is often above my paygrade, but it is always straight forward, concise and thought out. Thanks again.

[entropy_]

I just learned about OpenRGB when i looked at your startup programs, total game changer for me, no more bloated RGB Softwares..
Thanks ThioJoe for the unintentional suggestion!

[adityasinghi]

Shell:appsfolder is the most useful one

[spudhead]

That "Send To" folder tip was super useful. I've been using Windows and coding since the 90's and wasn't even aware of that one.

[kylek]

Re: The Automate/UWP no shortcut option -- That was an issue with Windows 10 as well. For some reason, Microsoft never added that functionality to UWP programs (send to desktop), so you had to do work arounds to get shortcuts outside of their auto-created areas.

I think it has something to do with how UWP apps are installed, if I recall, they install to a special ID folder that includes a version suffix or subfolder, so when they update, their path changes .. the UWP store handles the lookup for the active path, but a user created shortcut reduces that to a defined logical path which doesn't update. So it's why you have to do the workaround and create a shortcut to the virtual path the UWP store uses. Other apps like Fusion 360 use a similar system, but don't provide a symbolic / virtual path.

I'm surprised they didn't address this in Win11, as I believe they acknowledged the limitation years ago.

[mutedgroove]

3:17 The power automate shortcut is in WIndows Tools in Start menu app list. You can then normally drag and drop that app's shortcut to desktop.

[jayjoneslive]

As an IT Pro I knew that a couple of these folders existed because of your previous clips, but it's good to put them in this context. Definitely keeping in my favorites.

[glmchn]

What I love about TJ this is a perfect example, is that even though I knews about them and the CSIDL, I didn't though about some of the usecase he mentioned so I still managed to learn something 🤓 he does that every time, awesome

[radswfiihq]

I like how the pinned folder still uses IE in the name
Microsoft: 10/10 at naming things coherently

[mordechaistern]

Great tutorial, might want to use properties like %userprofile% or %appdata% just to simplify the path.

[BoomChockolaca]

This is an amazing video.
Being a power user, I only used shell:startup since Win8 release (because the autorun folder was simply too far to remember the path).
And I'm quiet surprised how many of them are there

[dragons_advocate]

The shell: shortcut for the startup folder is a godsend, thanks. I remember when it made sense to be where it is, back when the startmenu was a folder structure, but nowadays that path doesn't make sense anymore. And it always is a pain to find it manually.

[TagetesAlkesta]

As a web developer who uses macOS and Linux across several different devices, I’ve been pretty much completely off Windows for a few years now. But after watching this video and others like it, I realized how weird and fundamentally different of an operating system Windows is. It’s like peering into an alternative universe.

Edit: this isn’t a comment on whether Windows is good or not. I think overall the way it does things is fine. But in a world where basically every type of device (except desktop computers) runs some form of Unix-like OS, I find it fascinating that something as fundamentally different as Windows exists.

[ellaquin]

I have not had a video filled with such useful information in such a long time, I am probably going to use every single one of these folders on a near daily basis.

[SpicySteve]

With Shell:Programs you can use it to pin steam games to your taskbar. normaly they pin to the steam shourtcut in the taskbar, meaning you have to right click steam to access the shourtcut

[dominiquebello]

Thanks Thio! Interesting! I can add that these shell paths are also available via WINDOWS + R 😊

[steves]

This topic was great. I was actually struggling today on how to put a Microsoft store app on the desktop. Perfect timing 😀

[HDWOfficial]

I find the Apps & Taskbar Folder most useful. Thanks ❤

[SirenGlitch]

That SendTo is going to be so useful for me. I have HxD installed but there is no easy way to open a file in it without dragging it on, but adding a shortcut to it there will be a game changer

[thedigitallens]

I knew half of them. Got to some more through you. Thanks. 👍

The other day I wanted to assign a shortcut to spotify through the extra keys using icue. It wasn't a simple process. I had to create a shortcut on desktop of the app from apps folder and then create a batch file to link it with icue.

Situations like these do help to explore hidden folders and features 😅