How to make folder shortcuts act like folders inside File Open dialogs

Hello everyone

I don't store all my files in the Documents folder, but in various other nested folders on various other drives, e.g. D:\Folder1\Folder2\Folder3\Folder4 etc. I have a shortcuts on my Desktop to frequently used folders, e.g. a shortcut called "My Favourite Folder" that gets me to D:\Folder1\Folder2\Folder3\Folder4 quickly.

Under Windows 7 and earlier, I was able to open files directly from various programs' "File Open" dialogs using those shortcuts on my desktop. In other words, in e.g. MS Word, I could go Ctrl+O, click the Desktop shortcut, then click "My Favourite Folder" (which is not a folder but a shortcut to a folder), which instantly navigates me to D:\Folder1\Folder2\Folder3\Folder4, where I can then click e.g. "My File.doc" inside that folder, to open that file.

I can no longer do that, in Windows 10. Shortcuts to files and folders no longer appear in a File Open dialog. (Oh, I can change the filter to "All files", and then the shortcuts do show up, but they don't act as shortcuts.)

A frustrating workaround that I currently use is to double-click the e.g. "My Favourite Folder" shortcut on the Desktop, then click in its breadcrumbs field, Ctrl+C, and then go to Word, Ctrl+O, click in the File field, Ctrl+V, and click "Open", which navigates to that folder.

Is there some kind of setting in Windows 10 that brings back the Windows 7 behaviour?

Thanks
Samuel

Windows 10.0.18362 N/A Build 18362

ugcheleuce said:

I can no longer do that, in Windows 10. Shortcuts to files and folders no longer appear in a File Open dialog.

Like @dalchina, I cannot reproduce the problem you describe. Everything I have tried (Notepad, Word 2010, Word 2007, even Firefox) shows shortcuts in the Open dialog, and will navigate to the folder when clicking on a shortcut. (Windows 10, 2004)

Thanks, everyone... your comments made me look more closely at my problem, and it appears that the problem is with one program only, namely Microsoft Word 2003.

I now see that Word 2003 uses a different File Open dialog than other programs. This is weird... I did not have this problem with Word 2003 on Windows 7. Of course, I can't really remember how other programs' File Open dialogs looked on Windows 7.


Word 2003


Other programs (Word 2016 shown here)

ugcheleuce said:

Thanks, everyone... your comments made me look more closely at my problem, and it appears that the problem is with one program only, namely Microsoft Word 2003.

I now see that Word 2003 uses a different File Open dialog than other programs. This is weird... I did not have this problem with Word 2003 on Windows 7. Of course, I can't really remember how other programs' File Open dialogs looked on Windows 7.

Ah, you are correct, Word 2003 uses its own bespoke Open Dialog which is known to be too old to understand W10 shortcuts. Virtually all other apps will use the open dialog provided by explorer.exe so will be able to use the latest features including the new format for shortcuts.

Bree said:

Office 2003 just doesn't know how to handle Windows 10's shortcuts. You see, the File Open/Save dialogs that Office 2003 uses is part of the Office software itself. From Office 2007 onwards the File Open/Save dialog is provided by Windows (as it is for all other apps) so any app can see and use the shortcuts....

...There is, as far as I can see, no workaround that can make Office 2003 or earlier versions of Office see a W10 shortcut, its code is just too old to understand them

Office Word 2003 "Save As" - post #10

I don't have Word 2003 for testing, but you might be able to work around this issue with a Folder Shortcut, a trick of the WIndows Shell that differs from a .lnk shortcut to a folder and behaves more like a "real" folder.

A Folder Shortcut is a folder with two files:

• "Target.lnk": A "normal"shortcut to the target folder that must be named "Target". (extension only visible via cmd.exe or PowerShell)
• "deskotp.ini": A text file with the following contents:

Code:

[.ShellClassInfo]
CLSID2={0AFACED1-E828-11D1-9187-B532F1E9575D}
Flags=2

Windows will only process a folder's desktop.ini file if the folder's Read-only or System attribute is set. You can accomplish this is several ways.

• Set a acustom icon for the folder. This will add the icon specification to the desktop.ini file & set the folder's Read-only attribuate.
• Open a PowerShell window to the folder & type: (gi .).Attributes += 'ReadOnly'