Every time I launch windows explorer in XP, I like to see the list of folders at the left. I can do this by clicking the Folders button in the toolbar at the top. But I am tired of clicking the button every single time I use Windows Explorer, which is about 100 times a day. How can I start with this view already set? I've played around with options, but I couldn't find the answer.

Here's what I see when I start windows explorer:
http://picasaweb.google.com/ruin.christmas/WindowsExplorerProblem#5324810522841392514

And here's what I want to see:
http://picasaweb.google.com/ruin.christmas/WindowsExplorerProblem#5324810521609396290

Thank you for your help.

Hello and welcome to the forum.

My apologies for the time taken to answer your call for help. I've marked your thread as Open to encourage the clever ones amongst us to respond

i think i understand what you mean here your wanting your drives to show on 1 side and the folders on the other ? if so try this click start /. all programes /accessories then right click windows explorer click shortcut and copy and paste this to the target box
%SystemRoot%\explorer.exe /n, /e, /select, C:\ ps ..take a note of the value before you paste this incase it is not the view you want then you can change it back if it is wrong

I'm somewhat of an idiot. What I was clicking on was the My Documents in my Start menu. When I tried using the actual Windows Explorer link in the Accessories menu, it opened up exactly the way I wanted it. I tried editing the properties of My Documents like you said, but it wouldn't let me. So I removed My Documents from the start menu, moved Windows Explorer into the pinned links at the top of the start menu, and renamed it My Documents. Problem solved.

Thank you for your help though, I'm going to save your suggested properties so i can use them later if I need to. This problem was making me crazy. This forum is great. I want to learn enough to be a guru like you folks.

Thanks for letting us know that you resolved it. I'll get your thread marked accordingly.

Yes, this is a great site. Stick around and I'm sure you will learn!

If you want to access it even quicker, try pressing the win+e keys. Its the shortkey to start the explorer. Great if you quickly want to access some files, and then close it again.