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[Did You Know] Windows 8 Allows You to Remove “Favorites” from Windows Explorer Navigation Pane

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Microsoft’s latest OS Windows 8 comes with many new and secret features. We highlighted a few secret features in following topic:

Windows 8 Hidden Secret Features and Useful Hotkeys

Today in this topic, we are going to share another cool feature found in Windows 8. As we know Microsoft re-designed navigation pane in Windows 7 Explorer and added following 5 things to it:

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  • Favorites
  • Libraries
  • Homegroup
  • Computer
  • Network

But as usual Microsoft didn’t provide any built-in option to add/remove entries from navigation pane so you were not able to remove any of the above mentioned options from navigation pane. Although there are Registry tricks available to remove these options from Windows Explorer navigation pane. Interested people can find these tutorial links at the end of this article.

Now Microsoft has surprisingly added a new option in Windows 8 Explorer to remove “Favorites” entry from navigation pane.

When you right-click in navigation pane of Windows Explorer in Windows 8, you get a new option “Show favorites“. Its enabled by default and if you disable the option, it’ll immediately remove Favorites from navigation pane:

Remove_Favorites_Windows_8_Explorer.png

You can access the same option from Folder Options as well.

That’s really a nice addition to Windows 8 as many Windows 7 users wanted to remove Favorites from Windows Explorer navigation pane. Now Windows 8 users will not complain about it.

We hope that Microsoft will also provide similar options to remove other entries from navigation pane in final RTM version of Windows 8. Fingers crossed.

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Published in: Windows 8

About the author: Vishal Gupta (also known as VG) has been awarded with Microsoft MVP (Most Valuable Professional) award. He holds Masters degree in Computer Applications (MCA). He has written several tech articles for popular newspapers and magazines and has also appeared in tech shows on various TV channels.

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Comments

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  1. is there a way on how to add recycle bin and control panel shortcut in win 8 explorer navigation pane?
    Thanks!

  3. Thank you! Somehow I’d turned favourites off, and could not figure out what I’d done.

    Funny how it’s often the simplest fixes. :\

  9. You said this article would include registry ways to remove Favorites/Homegroups/Libraries from the navigation pane (& hopefully disable them), but there was nothing that I could see.

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