There is no doubt that of all the Windows 10 tools, File Explorer (formerly known as Windows Explorer) is the most used one. And yet, many self-professed Windows experts are only superficially familiar with this incredibly rich built-in application.
The basic principles for organizing files are simple:

• Combine files in several easy-to-access places.
• For more efficient search, use keywords and descriptive words in file names.
• Use powerful search tools in File Explorer.
• Have file backups.

Understanding how best to use File Explorer requires some knowledge of how Windows itself organizes files. Some of these subtleties are incredibly obvious, while others are so hidden that even an experienced hand can miss them.

The file explorer, by default, has its own button on the taskbar. If you prefer using the keyboard, use an easy-to-remember keyboard shortcut, logo Windows+E.

With a few subtle tweaks, you can personalize the file explorer layout to suit your style.

The ribbon (ribbon) at the top of File Explorer resembles its counterpart in Microsoft Office, but has one key difference - it is not customizable. The only thing you can do is double-click on any of the tab headers to hide its contents. With the content of the feed hidden, the headings feel like an old-fashioned menu bar, but there is more room for the content area.

The navigation bar located on the left is assembled into key points, which expand and collapse on demand. If you prefer the older, single-hierarchy tree view, select This PC, then on the View tab, go to the navigation bar, then select Show All Folders.

With the "Show all folders" option, the navigation bar looks like the image below. (Note that a shortcut menu is shown here to make the listing more concise.)

After selecting the "Show all folders" option, only two anchor points will be displayed in the navigation bar: quick access and the desktop.

Optional element, hidden by default, an area that appears to the right of the content area. Depending on the option you choose on the View tab, in the Panel group, a preview of the current element or details about it will be displayed. The image below shows that the preview area for a high resolution photo is saved in JPEG format. Windows 10 has filters for previewing most photo formats, Office documents, PDF files, and other common document formats.

The following figure shows the detail panel for a single file.

If the detail panel is selected, you can edit the metadata for the current file. The "save" and "cancel" buttons are displayed at the bottom of the panel.

Changing the Quick View

Sometimes you want to see a list with detailed information about a file, and sometimes thumbnails of all the files in a folder. It doesn't matter, in any file explorer window, with the help of small buttons in its lower right corner, you can switch between detail view and thumbnail view. The detailed view mode is especially useful if you want to filter the contents of a folder.

As mentioned earlier, you can't customize the ribbon, but you can position the Quick Access Toolbar (QAT) as you wish. By default, QAT is displayed in the title bar, above the ribbon. If you want to move it lower, click the down arrow to the right of it and then the Show Below Ribbon button. QAT in this new position is a modified option so you can always move it back above the ribbon.

The same menu contains a short list of the most frequently used commands that can always be added to quick access. To add commands that are available on the ribbon, but not in this menu, right-click on the desired command and select "Add to Quick Access Toolbar" from the context menu that appears.

And further, one of the little-known secrets of QAT tuning. You can add groups of commands to the Quick Access Toolbar. For example, go to the "View" tab, at the bottom of the "Panels" group, right-click on the desired shortcut and select the "Add to Quick Access Toolbar" command. Now when you click on this shortcut in QAT, you can select either the preview area or the details panel.

Organize files with the quick access option

The shortcut option is always displayed at the top of the navigation bar. Its sole purpose is to give you quick access to frequently used files and folders. Having fixed the location of the items you need, you can customize it.

The shortcut option is one of the most important additions to file explorer. As mentioned earlier, organizing files in different locations is one of the first steps towards overall organization. Once you have identified these locations, attach shortcuts to them in the hotspot and easily open what you need.

In order to pin the desired disk, folder, library or partition in the quick access list, right-click on it and select the "Pin for quick access" item in the context menu. To remove an unnecessary item, right-click on it in the quick access list and select "Remove from quick access".

Recently opened folders appear at the bottom of the quick access list. If a quick access title is selected, the pinned and recent folders of that group will be displayed at the top of the content pane, with recently opened files below them.

You can view this list of recent files (and even pin a shortcut to the Quick Access Toolbar) by going to %AppData%\Microsoft\Windows\Recent. You can get to this location even faster, open the Run \ Run field and enter shell: recent in it. You can find some advanced shortcut settings in the Folder Options dialog box. Where, at the very top, you can specify whether you want new File Explorer windows to open in quick access or as standard, like This PC.

If you need to, uncheck one or both of the options in the Privacy section, at the bottom of the folder options window, which will prevent recently opened files and folders from appearing in quick access. Click the "Purge" button to empty the Recent folder and remove all shortcuts (except for the ones you have attached).

Using Libraries and Known Folders

The more you use your computer, the more you understand the hierarchy of folders that start with drives and letters.

But, if you are ready to give up old habits, you can significantly increase your productivity with the help of the Windows 10 file explorer. The secret is to master the so-called well-known folders of your profile - user documents, downloads, music, pictures, videos, and so on. And most importantly - learn how to use libraries, which are a very effective way to collect files from several folders located in different places into virtual folders in which information is easy to search and filter.

In a clean install of Windows 10, the archives are hidden. If you don't see the "Libraries" link in the navigation bar, go to the "View" menu and check the "Show Libraries" box. By default, the library mainly displays duplicate documents, music, photos, and videos from the user's profile. If you don't plan to customize these libraries or create your own, you can keep them hidden. But there are many advantages to using libraries.

Adding folders to a library

To view and manage folders in an existing library, to make the Manage tab visible (it's under the heading Library Tools), first click on it, then select Manage Library. The figure below shows the results for the Documents library with files taken from four folders - the default Documents folder in the user profile, two separate OneDrive synced folders, and a shared folder called the company name located on a network file server.

The expand document library option in the navigation bar shows a separate entry for each folder contained in the library. You can use these links to view individual folders. More importantly, all folders in a library are automatically indexed, meaning you can search and filter content from multiple sources as if they were in the same folder. In addition, all files in the library are supported by the "File History" feature.

To add a folder to an existing library, first click on the Manage Library button, then on the Add button, and then navigate to the folder you want to include in the library. An easier way is to right-click on the desired folder and select the "Include in Library" command from the context menu. This option shows a list of existing libraries.

Right-click on a folder and use the context menu to add it to an existing library, or to create a new library, use the "Create New Library" option at the bottom of the menu.

The attentive reader will undoubtedly notice that the list of libraries available in the context menu contains two of them that are not on the navigation bar. The Photos app, for its own use, creates camera and photo libraries, which other apps can do as well.

To create your own library, use the "Create New Library" option at the bottom of this menu. Or alternatively, in the navigation bar, click on the header of the library, then right-click on the content pane and select New, then select the library. With the new library open, click "Include in Folder" and add the directory you need, to add multiple folders select the Manage Library option.

Moving data folders to another location

You can move known user profile folders - documents, downloads, music, pictures, and so on to another location. This is especially useful if you are using a desktop PC with two physical drives. For example, as a system disk - a small, fast solid state drive (SSD), and a regular hard drive with more capacity for data files. The effect of moving is most noticeable if your digital music or photo collection is too large to fit comfortably on your system drive, where it usually resides. The process is very simple. Open your user profile (the easiest way is to type %UserProfile%) in the address bar, right-click on the folder you want to move, and in the context menu, select the "Location" tab. Next, a dialog box will open.

Here you can enter the path to the move folder or click the "Move / Move" button and point to the location you need (with the ability to create a new folder). To change the location, click Apply or OK. When you do this, you will see a dialog box as shown here:

Answer - Yes, if you do not want the folder (and its contents) to be stored in your user profile. Repeat this process for any other roaming folders in your profile. By the way, it is quite normal to mix and match locations for these well-known folders. In fact, this tweak is also convenient because you can easily see the current location for all folders.

• In the file explorer address bar, by typing %UserProfile%, open your user profile, then press Enter.
• Switch to detail view if necessary.
• Right-click on the heading of any column, then, at the bottom of the context menu that appears, select "Next". The parts selection dialog will open:

• Select the folder path from the list and click OK.

The contents of the File Explorer window should now look like the following figure. Here, you will immediately see that the download folders and images have been transferred.

With the addition of the folder path to the list displayed in the detailed view, you will immediately see where each of the user profile folders is located.

File Explorer can show image thumbnails and file and folder icons in Windows 10. In this tutorial, we will show you how to enable or disable thumbnail previews in File Explorer for everyone or a specific user account in Windows 10.

• Method 1. Turn thumbnails on and off in File Explorer Options
• Method 2. Turn thumbnail view on or off in visual effects settings
• Method 3. Enabling and disabling thumbnail viewing using a BAT file
• Method 4. Enable or disable thumbnails in group policy
• Method 5. Enable or disable thumbnail preview using REG file

EXAMPLE: Thumbnail preview enabled and disabled in file explorer

Enable or disable thumbnail previews in Windows 10 File Explorer.

Method 1: Turn thumbnails on and off in File Explorer Options.

Note: This setting only affects your user account, as well as the second and third methods.

1. Open "Explorer Options". Click menu "File" and select .

2. In the opened window "Folders settings" go to tab "View".

Note: default value.

3.1 On the tab "View" find the option and uncheck the box and click on the button OK.

4.1 Go to the tab "View", check the box "Always show icons, not thumbnails" and press "OK".

Method 2: Enable or disable thumbnail previews in Windows 10 File Explorer using the Visual Effects setting.

1. Open the "Visual Effects" settings. Press the Win + R keyboard shortcut, type or copy and paste into the Run dialog box: SystemPropertiesPerformance.exe and press the Enter key.

3. Enable Thumbnail Preview in File Explorer

Note: default value.

3.1 Check the box next to the item and click the button OK.

4. Disable Thumbnail Preview in File Explorer

4.1 Uncheck "Show thumbnails instead of icons" click OK.

Method 3: Turn thumbnail view on and off using a BAT file.

The .bat files below will change the DWORD value in the registry key:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Advanced

IconsOnly DWORD

• 0 = Off - show icons
• 1 = On - show thumbnails

2. Enable Thumbnail Preview in File Explorer

Note: default value.

2. In the left pane of the Local Group Policy Editor, navigate to - . (see screenshot below)

3. In the right pane of the policy, open the section "Conductor" and change the policy setting

5. To enable thumbnail preview in file explorer

5.1 Select "Not set" or "Disabled" and button OK.

5.2 Users can now turn on / off thumbnail preview using Ways 1, 2, 3 .

6. Disable thumbnail previews in file explorer.

6.1 Select "Included" and press OK.

Method 5: Enable or disable thumbnail previews in File Explorer in Windows 10 using a REG file

Note: You must have Administrator rights.

This option does the same as Method 4, but only applies to the current user.

This Method will override the previous settings in the Methods. 1, 2, 3 .

Using the reg file below, DWORD values ​​are added and modified in the registry keys:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer

DisableThumbnails DWORD

• 0 or delete = Enabled
• 1 = Disabled

2. Enable thumbnail preview in file explorer for all users.

Note: This is the default value.

3. Disable thumbnail preview in file explorer for all users.4,5 /5 - 402 votes

About all popular versions of Windows, including the old one XP, there is a function that allows you to view the contents of files in a special area of ​​\u200b\u200bExplorer on the left. The component supports previewing images, media and text files, as well as documents Microsoft office provided that the package is available on the computer. For the latter, Windows also has an alternative - view file thumbnails Word , excel and PowerPoint You can do it right in the Explorer.

By default, Microsoft Office files in the Explorer window are represented by regular icons, but if you enable the thumbnail display function in the program, their contents can be seen in the main Explorer window, however, in order for you to be able to see something in them, you will have to change the view in the menu. choosing "Huge Icons".

In addition, the font itself in the document must be large. Let's see how this can be done using the example of files of the format DOC and DOCX .

Open a document and choose from the menu "File"-> . On the right side, open , then "Additional properties".

And check the checkbox in the opened window "Keep thumbnails for all Word documents".

Then save the document again. It will now appear as a thumbnail in Explorer. Unfortunately, the new settings will only apply to new documents. Word , if you want all files previously created or downloaded from the Internet to be displayed in thumbnail mode, you will have to resave them.

Similarly, the display of thumbnails for files is enabled. excel and PowerPoint, only in the latter the corresponding option is called "Create Preview Drawing".

On Windows 10, you use the Photos app to view images, not Windows Photo Viewer. After clicking on the pictures, photos saved in popular formats will be opened in the Photos application.

Probably many will use this application on their computers, others liked the Windows Photo Viewer more. The most interesting thing is that the old Windows Photo Viewer in Windows 10 has not gone anywhere, it has remained in the operating system. By default, Windows Photo Viewer in Windows 10 opens "TIF" and "TIFF" files.

Therefore, you can restore "Windows Photo Viewer" in the Windows 10 operating system in order to open image files of popular formats with this viewer. How you get Windows Photo Viewer back on your computer will differ depending on how you got Windows 10 on your computer: an upgrade from a previous version of the operating system, or a fresh clean install of Windows 10.

How to restore Windows Photo View when upgrading to Windows 10

If your computer has Windows 10 operating system after upgrading from Windows 7 or Windows 8.1, then there will be no problems using the old photo viewer. In this case, Windows Photo Viewer is present in the GUI of the operating system.

To select a photo viewer as the application to open a supported image file format (.bmp, .dib, .jpe, .jpg, .jpeg, .gif, .jfif, .jpeg, .jxr, .png, .wdp), right click click on the image, and then from the "Open with" context menu, select the "Select another application" context menu item from the list of available applications.

After that, the "How do you want to open this file?" window will open. In the "Other options" section, among the list of applications, you will see "Windows Photo Viewer". Highlight the Windows Image Viewer, then check the box next to "Always use this application to open (.file extension) files", and then click on the "OK" button.

After that, files of this graphic format will be opened by default using the Windows Photo Viewer application.

How to bring back the photo viewer in Windows 10

On a clean install of Windows 10, Windows Photo Viewer will be missing from the operating system GUI, so it cannot be selected to open certain types of files.

In this case, the problem with the old Windows Viewer can be solved in several ways, in which the ability to select an application for the corresponding file types will be restored. This is done by making changes to the Windows 10 registry.

Before making changes to the Windows registry, or before making other major changes to your computer, be sure to create a system restore point. In this case, if problems arise, you can return Windows 10 to the working state that was on your computer before making changes.

Download to your computer a file that contains the application of changes in the registry of the operating system to add missing values.

restore windows photoviewer reg download

Then run this file on your computer. To do this, double-click on the registry file (extension.reg) with the left mouse button, or after clicking with the right mouse button, select the "Merge" item in the context menu.

After applying the changes in the registry, on your computer, the Windows Photo Viewer will be available in the context menu "Open with" to select a program to open photos saved in a specific format.

This will open the "Choose an application" window, in which you will see Windows Photo View among other applications. Next, click on the application to match the supported file formats.

You can do all this yourself manually by adding file type parameters to the registry branch:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/SOFTWARE/Microsoft/Windows Photo Viewer/Capabilities/FileAssociations

I will not describe this method, since all this can be easily done using a ready-made registry file.

Bringing Back the Photo Viewer with Winaero Tweaker

It will be possible to restore Windows Photo Viewer in Windows 10 using the free Winaero Tweaker program. The program does not require installation on a computer, the application is launched from a folder.

Download Winaero Tweaker

After launching the Winaero Tweaker program on your computer, in the right part of the program window, find the item "Activate Windows Photo Viewer". First, select this item, and then on the left side of the utility window, click on "Activate Windows Photo Viewer" to restore the functions of the Windows Photo Viewer application in Windows 10.

Then the "Select default programs" window will open, in which you will need to highlight "Windows Viewer", and then click on "Set this program as default" to open all supported file types, or "Choose default values ​​for this program" to open specific file types of your choice.

Many users, when familiarizing themselves with the new OS from Microsoft, found that viewing Windows 10 photos is done through the Photos program. But in Windows 8, Microsoft offered a choice between the photo viewer and the Photos tool.

Why did developers save users the ability to view common graphic formats through a more convenient and functional program?

Many Windows 10 users start looking for better third-party products knowing that Photo Viewer only works with TIFF and TIF formats. Therefore, today we will consider how to add this tool to the "Default Applications" section and the "Open with" dialog, where the program is initially absent.

Let's use the registry editor

More advanced users try to list "Photo Viewer" as the application to open pixel images through the Software Mapping tool, but again, the application is only available for the above TIFF/TIF. Can I make it so that the photo viewer can be specified as the opener for other image formats as well? Of course, and it's easy to do.

1. We call the registry editor by executing the "regedit" command in the search line or the text line of the "Win + R" command interpreter.

2. Go to HKLM/SOFTWARE/Microsoft/Windows Photo Viewer/Capabilities/FileAssociations.

Here you will see a couple of options with the name of the image formats that are allowed to be opened using the photo viewer.

3. Using the right button, we call the context menu of the free part of the space of the right frame of the window and select the creation of a string parameter (REG_SZ).

4. Enter its name as ".jpeg", and set the value to "PhotoViewer.FileAssoc.Tiff".

We do all the same operations for other formats (.jpg, .gif, .png) that you want to open through a more convenient image visualization tool.

5. We call "Parameters" by means of Win+i.

6. Go to "System" → "Default Applications".

8. In the left frame with the list of programs, click on "Photo Viewer", then on the icon with the inscription: "Select default values ​​for the program."

9. Check the boxes next to the required formats.

11. We call the context menu item "Open with" on one of the selected image formats.

Windows Photo Viewer will appear.

12. Specify the tool as the default image opener.

Alternative method

For beginners who do not want to delve into the wilds of the Windows 10 settings store, it is recommended to use the WinAero Tweaker utility.

• After launching the application, we move to the last item of the available tweaks "Windows Accessories".
• Click on the "Activate Windows Photo Viewer" button.

The result will be the same in both cases.