Windows Tools, Help & Guides

6 thoughts on “Toggle the Navigation Pane with a Button in Windows Explorer [How To]”

1. Bearben20 says:

   July 5, 2011 at 14:31

   Wrong stuff

2. No says:

   November 5, 2011 at 15:32

   This didn’t work on any of the Windows 7 computers tried, including both 32-bit and 64-bit.

3. Garry says:

   February 29, 2012 at 21:42

    SetPermsandOwnership.exe flagged as trojan by Comodo. Tried to bypass but got message “Windows cannot access the specified devices path, or file. You may not have the appropriate
   permissions to access the item.”

4. Cory Cullers says:

   July 17, 2013 at 02:17

   I thought the same thing too. Pay attention folks. It does work. The issue is that it does not show up on the drives page. You know, the first page you see when you click on Computer? It shows up on libraries and regular folders and everything else after that. You just have to click on your C drive first. So if you did like I did and click on your Computer icon and don’t see it, and say to yourself, its not working… Then you have fallen victim to being an idiot like me at first. I have installed this app 3 times in 2 years and thought it never worked. but then I opened my eyes and noticed it does work. Just not on the first page. Silly!

   1. Sidney says:

      September 18, 2015 at 15:16

      Actually this does work. If you unzip the file and open up the “reg_entries’ folder, you will find eight (8) “.reg” files. All but two (2) of these are for the explorer navigation pane “Libraries” folder (common_lib / docs_lib / libs / music_lib / pic_lib / vids_lib). Of the remaining two (2) “.reg” files, one is for the when/if the user adds their user profile to the explorer navigation pane (user_profile.reg) and the final is for adding this button to every explorer folder (common_folders.reg) I used the .exe installer and experienced what everyone was complaining about. I did not see the button in any folders but the “Libraries” folders. So, I went to “common_folders.reg” and double clicked on it and Windows asked me if I wanted to install the file into the registry. I clicked yes and immediately got an access denied error. So, I right clicked on the “common_folders.reg” file and selected “edit” and it opened in “Notepad”. Using the mapped information in the “common_folders.reg” file, I opened up my registry editor and went to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWAREMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionExplorerFolderTypes{5c4f28b5-f869-4e84-8e60-f11db97c5cc7}. I right clicked on {5c4f28b5-f869-4e84-8e60-f11db97c5cc7} and selected “Permissions”. I clicked on “Advanced” and selected “Replace owner on subcontainers and objects” and made myself the owner. I closed out of the registry and double clicked on “common_folders.reg” again and it went through without a hitch. The button now shows up on all folders in the Folderband (a.k.a. Command Bar). I did not bother with the set ACL or SetPermsandOwnership “.exe” files because I have my Windows 7 Ultimate (32bit) tamed from a Tiger to a pussycat. For anyone interested, just open the “reg_entries’ folder and double click on each “.reg” file to install this. The ones that don;t work, just go to the location in the registry listed in the reg file (tight click > edit) and take ownership of that registry key via right-click > permissions. So… this works, but it could have been explained a bit better and packaged a bit better. -Sidney

      1. Jonny says:

         December 18, 2015 at 10:12

         Thanks Sidney!

         Do you know if, once configured, the button can be assigned a hotkey? I loathe pointer-dragging, especially for view>toggle operations

         Imagine it’s possible, perhaps using AHK, but not yet worked it out

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