Add Vista's Favourite Links bar to XP

Remember this Workshop is only for Windows XP users. Finder Bar requires that Microsoft’s .NET Framework 1.1 tool is installed on your PC. To verify if it is, click Start and select Control Panel. Click Add or Remove Programs, then scroll through the list looking for a Microsoft .NET Framework 1.1 entry (ignore references to the .NET Framework 2.0 or 3.0 as these are different programs). If it’s present, jump to Step 2; if it’s not, open your web browser, type www.snipurl.com/netframe1 into the Address or Location bar and press Enter. Click Download, save dotnetfx.exe to your hard disk and then double-click it to install the .NET Framework Tool.

In your web browser, type www.snipurl.com/finderbar into the Address or Location bar and press Enter. Scroll down and click the link entitled ‘Finder style for Windows’, and save the file (finderstyleforwindows.zip) to the Windows Desktop. Now click the second link ­ ‘Restore original Explorer’ and save that file (restoreexplorer.zip) to your desktop too. Close your web browser. Click finderstyleforwindows.zip with the right mouse button and choose Extract All. Click Next twice, followed by Finish. Open the FinderStyleforWindows folder and double-click FinderBar-0.1.3.0.msi to install Finder Bar. Follow the on-screen instructions to install the program.

Open a folder or click Start and select My Computer. Now open the View menu, select Explorer Bar and choose Finder Bar from the list. You’ll see a list of shortcuts appear in the left-hand pane of the folder window. Click one and you’ll instantly go to that folder or view. The quickest way to add your own folder to the Folder Bar is to drag it from the right-hand pane on to the Folder Bar itself ­ drag it to where you want it to sit among the other icons and let go of the mouse button.

A simple text entry will appear in the list ­ click it to jump to that folder. Add as many shortcuts as you like ­ if you run out of space, right-click the Finder Bar and choose Icon Size to pick a smaller size (16x16 or 24x24) to fit more in. To change how the shortcut looks, right-click on the Folder Bar and select Edit List from the dropdown menu. The Shortcut List Editor window will open. Select an icon and click Delete to remove it, or Move Up/Move Down to change its order in the list.

To edit this or any shortcut, select it and click Edit. The Shortcut Editor window will open. You can give the shortcut a friendlier name, change the folder it points to by clicking Browse next to Path, or assign an icon to it from another file. To do this, click Browse next to Image. Select a file containing icons ­ a good starting point is a Windows file called shell32.dll. Browse to the C:\Windows\System32 folder, type shell32.dll into the File name box and click Open. Pick your icon from the list and click OK three times.

If you’d like Finder Bar to appear automatically when you open a folder window in future, open the FinderStyleforWindows folder from Step 2 and double-click setfinder.zip to open it. Double-click set-finderbar.reg and choose Run, followed by Yes when prompted. Finder Bar will now appear automatically when you next open a folder. You can close Finder Bar at any time by clicking the ‘x’ button at the top of the Finder Bar window. Or, if you want to permanently remove it from the default view when opening a folder, double-click restoreexplorer.zip, followed by restore-tree-1.reg and choose Run, followed by Yes.