Special Windows Folders You Need to Know About

[@raymondjohnson2593]

Thank you ThioJoe, I kinda forgot how useful editing the "send to" folder is. I have often built song libraries onto removable storage devices and using send to vs drag and drop is so much cleaner a process. The information you provide on this channel is often above my paygrade, but it is always straight forward, concise and thought out. Thanks again.

[@entropy_69]

I just learned about OpenRGB when i looked at your startup programs, total game changer for me, no more bloated RGB Softwares.. Thanks ThioJoe for the unintentional suggestion!

[@Sir_Astral]

It broke my razer motherboard RGB so I don't recommend it..not even RMA could fix it. They have to send me another motherboard.

[@Vysair]

@@Sir_Astral so bricking the firmware huh

[@Sir_Astral]

@@Vysair yes and not even a firmware fash make it work. The RMA guy told me that they had ASRock intervention and not even they could fix it... or maybe they didn't care enough so they sent me another board, but I live in Argentina so the board took roughly 6 months to arrive

[@xpyr]

@@Sir_AstralHow can software brick your hardware? Is it updating the firmware on the hardware?

[@fluf201playz]

yeah it also works on linux that is a plus for me

[@jayjoneslive]

As an IT Pro I knew that a couple of these folders existed because of your previous clips, but it's good to put them in this context. Definitely keeping in my favorites.

[@adityasinghi]

Shell:appsfolder is the most useful one

[@Overflow066]

Yeah this would’ve saved me many hours if I knew this just a couple weeks ago. Still good to know for the next time I need to mess with app links

[@crazycheetah42]

It's the most mac-like one there

[@glmchn]

What I love about TJ this is a perfect example, is that even though I knews about them and the CSIDL, I didn't though about some of the usecase he mentioned so I still managed to learn something 🤓 he does that every time, awesome

[@mutedgroove]

3:17 The power automate shortcut is in WIndows Tools in Start menu app list. You can then normally drag and drop that app's shortcut to desktop.

[@5H4D0WOfficial]

I find the Apps & Taskbar Folder most useful. Thanks ❤

[@spudhead169]

That "Send To" folder tip was super useful. I've been using Windows and coding since the 90's and wasn't even aware of that one.

[@Chris.Brisson]

Put a shortcut to VLC in your "Send To".

[@spudhead169]

@@Chris.Brisson Not really needed as any media file will have "Open with VLC" in the context menu anyway. But, putting HxD there? Now that's very handy.

[@Chris.Brisson]

@@spudhead169when you "Send to" VLC, there is no audit trail. 😉

[@Lemony123]

​@@spudhead169oh gosh, now I have an ideas. You could use it for exe files which usually dont have an "open with" option.

[@radswfiihq]

I like how the pinned folder still uses IE in the name Microsoft: 10/10 at naming things coherently

[@mk_rexx]

It's interesting to see history through that path. Quickl Launch is the predecessor of pinning to taskbar before Win7. I also learned that Quick Launch can be used if you install Internet Explorer. I guess it was first targeted toward launching webpages even though you can launch any shortcut there.

[@kylek29]

Re: The Automate/UWP no shortcut option -- That was an issue with Windows 10 as well. For some reason, Microsoft never added that functionality to UWP programs (send to desktop), so you had to do work arounds to get shortcuts outside of their auto-created areas. I think it has something to do with how UWP apps are installed, if I recall, they install to a special ID folder that includes a version suffix or subfolder, so when they update, their path changes .. the UWP store handles the lookup for the active path, but a user created shortcut reduces that to a defined logical path which doesn't update. So it's why you have to do the workaround and create a shortcut to the virtual path the UWP store uses. Other apps like Fusion 360 use a similar system, but don't provide a symbolic / virtual path. I'm surprised they didn't address this in Win11, as I believe they acknowledged the limitation years ago.

[@charginginprogresss]

Yeah I noticed UWP shortcut refer to some empty exe files in my appdata folder, that redirect to the correct app. So I just created a desktop shortcut of those exe files and it worked.

[@LilacMonarch]

Yet another indication that microsoft don't care about quality, they're pushing w11 for control

[@nopenoperson9118]

Microsoft? Address technical debt?

[@ellaquin]

I have not had a video filled with such useful information in such a long time, I am probably going to use every single one of these folders on a near daily basis.

[@BoomChockolaca]

This is an amazing video. Being a power user, I only used shell:startup since Win8 release (because the autorun folder was simply too far to remember the path). And I'm quiet surprised how many of them are there

[@Cho_osen]

Proud to say i knew most of them

[@eropoke]

You were the chosen one

[@TismoGaming]

Proud to say, I knew none of them

[@raeplaysval]

let’s see if you can evade the “it’s not that big of a deal” comment

[@Dessensce]

@@raeplaysvalItS nOt A bIg DeAl

[@SparkyOne549]

Same here!

[@---nw9qu]

Great video. I've worked in IT all my career and learned some things here.

[@steves1749]

This topic was great. I was actually struggling today on how to put a Microsoft store app on the desktop. Perfect timing 😀

[@dominiquebello3212]

Thanks Thio! Interesting! I can add that these shell paths are also available via WINDOWS + R 😊

[@shiraziahmedsheikh6365]

6:49 You can also install new font from downloading them from internet

[@Kyonyx.]

That's a lot of useful information... I believe it took some time and patience to learn all of that... Respect ❤

[@alfonsoPina]

Some I knew and a few I had a hunch. But a lot I had no idea about. Good video, very helpful with my MSP work. I can setup environments way more personalized.

[@dragons_advocate]

The shell: shortcut for the startup folder is a godsend, thanks. I remember when it made sense to be where it is, back when the startmenu was a folder structure, but nowadays that path doesn't make sense anymore. And it always is a pain to find it manually.

[@PoeLemic]

yes, very painful

[@thedigitallens]

I knew half of them. Got to some more through you. Thanks. 👍 The other day I wanted to assign a shortcut to spotify through the extra keys using icue. It wasn't a simple process. I had to create a shortcut on desktop of the app from apps folder and then create a batch file to link it with icue. Situations like these do help to explore hidden folders and features 😅

[@hyplayer]

This can be very useful for me Great video!

[@SirenGlitch]

That SendTo is going to be so useful for me. I have HxD installed but there is no easy way to open a file in it without dragging it on, but adding a shortcut to it there will be a game changer

[@inakijauregui]

Thanks ThioJoe! Excellent Video, as all your videos! Keep up the good work!

[@mordechaistern1624]

Great tutorial, might want to use properties like %userprofile% or %appdata% just to simplify the path.

[@Felttipfuzzywuzzyflyguy]

Thank you so much for sharing these! I had no idea about these, I'm going to start using the send to folder especially.

[@arregorn]

These are so awesome! Thank you, ThioJoe for this info!

[@-BigChungus]

What if you have a shutdown shortcut in startup?

[@OmarTheOmar1.0offical]

If you add a shutdown shortcut to the `shell:startup` folder on Windows 11, it will cause your computer to shut down automatically every time you start your PC. This is because the `shell:startup` folder is designed to launch programs or scripts when you log in, so adding a shutdown command there will trigger the shutdown process upon startup.

[@MichaelLloydMobile]

Excellent information, very useful.

[@MrLeroyJacob]

Great video Joe! I learned some new shortcuts. I didn't know about quite a few of the apps such as: Quick Assist. I am currently playing Tetra Blocks. I forgot I installed it months ago. I found it in the Apps folder! Now I can play while watching your Adv Win Features Video. Thanks again!

[@ASGSam1]

Useful info, thanks

[@krunkle5136]

Makes me appreciate Unix where everything is in one large hierarchy of files with the mount points and configuration files elegantly spread around in different places.

[@Ganymede2076]

I knew the 3D Models folder, could be a cool way to store your Blender models or CAD files

[@tompov227]

Akzidenz-Grotesk is a font from 1898 that is the basis for Helvetica. Weird but cool to see it show up in ThioJoe videos. Wonder where it came from

[@markobregovec6259]

Thank you Thio. One adition to the Video. There is actualy also a Shell command to navigate to the Taskbar Pinned Folder. It is "shell:User Pinned" 🙂 Great Video as always.

[@SlitDiver]

Thio, not sure if you know this but you can type \*username* (with no \) into file paths as a placeholder for the user's username. This also works in batch/cmd script files too

[@SpicySteve01]

With Shell:Programs you can use it to pin steam games to your taskbar. normaly they pin to the steam shourtcut in the taskbar, meaning you have to right click steam to access the shourtcut

[@zakzak247]

You don't need to do that tho, you can just pin the actual .exe that Steam opens. If you go to your Steam folder you can find it.

[@vulpzin]

​@@zakzak247some games require it to be started through steam though

[@emirgeek]

I knew about these folders and some not, but I didn't know I could access them so easily!, this will be very useful, tysm ThioJoe!

[@StellarWeb008]

The gradient image in your thumbnail irresistible attracts

[@TheCynysterMind]

Well Done on the Directory Opus!

[@HarmonicaMustang]

I knew most of them using the literal path, but it's nice to see a quicker way to them. Some might even be exploitable with Group Policy for a more refined end-user experience.

[@AlphaWhiteWolf20]

I knew about the folders, but not the "Shell:folder" method to access them. Thanks for another useful video!

[@Sajjad.A]

Already know most of them because I love to explore an OS by going around in directories and settings and see what's hidden. That's essentially how I learned to use Linux.

[@thahrimdon]

Please never change! Great video as always!

[@TagetesAlkesta]

As a web developer who uses macOS and Linux across several different devices, I’ve been pretty much completely off Windows for a few years now. But after watching this video and others like it, I realized how weird and fundamentally different of an operating system Windows is. It’s like peering into an alternative universe. Edit: this isn’t a comment on whether Windows is good or not. I think overall the way it does things is fine. But in a world where basically every type of device (except desktop computers) runs some form of Unix-like OS, I find it fascinating that something as fundamentally different as Windows exists.

[@angrysocialjusticewarrior]

I find it hilarious that you think an OS with 80% market share is an alternate universe. Buddy, it is Mac that is alternate.

[@TagetesAlkesta]

@@angrysocialjusticewarrior In the world of web development, Windows is absolutely an alternative. The web runs on Linux.

[@TitusSc]

@@angrysocialjusticewarrior he’s right though. Windows is the only current OS (desktop, server, IoT, phones, etc.) that isn’t a descendant of UNIX. If you limit yourself to desktop towers for personal use, yes sure Windows might have a 80% market share, but that’s merely the surface of the iceberg. Truth is, Windows is not only an oddity, it is a minority, the vast majority of OSes in use on ALL computers is based on UNIX

[@GoogleDoesEvil]

@@TitusScUnix is depressing. It's the IE6 or Chromium of the web.

[@schabowyBar]

Linux will never be the mainstream operating system. People are lazy and the vast majority of them will not have the slightest desire to study books or websites to learn how to use Linux. And even if Windows costs a fortune, it will still be the leading operating system because it communicates with the user visually. In the 1990s, I mastered dos to perfection because I wanted to and had to. My adventure with Linux recently lasted a week. And since I'm over 40, I have no desire to learn and this week effectively discouraged me from continuing my adventure with Linux.

[@Koleje93]

The File at 4:40 Does something Cool If you will Drag any file to this file then it will create .ZIP folder instantly

[@Moshiur_Rahman]

Thats what is is meant to do

[@UltraZelda64]

This might have been more useful at least two decades ago before I completely ditched Windows and moved to Linux. Honestly, Windows' filesystem and special directories are so needlessly convoluted and confusing, and this video only highlights that... if anything, thanks for the reminder of just all of the quality of life improvements I've been enjoying all these years since leaving Windows XP.

[@AC1131-i8d]

Imagine how much better your life would be if you refrained from needless comments like this.

[@-ari]

@@AC1131-i8d what's the problem, though? He's just sharing his experience.

[@mamapapaxp]

@@-ari - The problem... is that @UltraZelda64 is bemoaning his Casio HL4 Calculator (WINDOWS) for not dealing with Inferential Statistics, Graphing 3D Parametric Plots and calculating Linear Regressions... as he's now happily doing with his HP Prime G2 Calculator (LINUX). They are two very different tools for very different audiences. It is understandable that many starting out in Windows may reach a point where what they need to do takes fancy workarounds, such as those in this video (at least, there ARE workarounds... there's that), and realise that they need the Scientific Graphing Calculator of the Operating System world. Just don't get salty when the 'Everyman' system doesn't actually turn out to be for EVERY MAN. They are two different things.

[@blackcat_064]

2:34 The Apps Folder is especially useful for getting a shortcut for the new Minecraft Launcher on your desktop, because it is a Microsoft Store app now, which is very annoying.

[@fcgn1908]

Thank you. You solved a problem I didn't know I had until now.

[@liquidapathy82]

I knew some of those folders. But the examples were very informative!

[@lasbrujazz]

I'm frequently using a batch file that creates a folder with foldername based on the originating files, and having the batch file stationed in shell:SendTo, I can just select multiple files that I wanna separate per folder, right click them, and just hit that batch. Super neat way to organize my movies into its own folder.

[@AbandonedVoid]

That's a really clever idea

[@cmdrbozo]

Didn't know about these. Always struggled finding the Windows Startup folder as many apps have folders with this name.

[@BrainsanBrawn]

Thanks for sharing tips and switches, no never knew folders, I'll look into special folder.

[@tejeswar]

SendTo folder is very useful, thanks mate!

[@IamMauriS]

I love when i am in my school depression, but when thiojoe uploads a video it is all over.

[@SaadKidwai]

I've been organising my start menu since windows vista and oh man did I feel like I was in control of the universe. Would sit there and just admire my work.

[@Zaluuk]

3:44 You can change the owner of probably any file to an user from the security and that allows you to read and write into the folders and files

[@cafeden6868]

Great info. Thank you so much

[@ZapRodil461]

The "shell:startup" is very cool!!

[@daviddavids23]

Did not know about these folders. Thank you.

[@crabrave1376]

This man is ahead of time, his got the photoshop 2024. Respect

[@LVIS-a]

Awesome. I learn something new every day.

[@tanja_the_fox]

3:40 not all UWP Apps are on the microsoft store. UWP just means that it can be run on any device running a version of windows 3:51 You can't access it via the explorer, since explorer.exe can't be run as Administrator (Why even? Could you cover that in a video one day?). You can access it with a Terminal run as Administrator or with any explorer that let's you run it as admin. Or you can run takeown /F . or takeown /F {Path to dir} to get acccess with explorer (You have to repeat the process for every folder inside or run it recursively with the /R flag. Don't worry, this won't break anything, since the takeown command only adds the current account for full access, but doesn't affect the original users perms. I've confirmed it with msdn and tested it. But i wouldn't recommend trying anything there, if you don't know exactly what you're doing, since you could break a lot of stuff

[@VaibhavShewale]

col, thats interesting. been using some commands from the video but learned more!

[@microsoftsarker]

very informative video Bro. Many many Thanks

[@nightcat7444]

I knew some of these but really there was alot of things i didnt know about. btw Great video ThioJoe for the tips :0

[@baribari1000]

Didn't know about most of these!

[@karmanderdimdung223]

gonna have to look up common startup folder. didn't even occur to me. but the send to folder is game changer for me. thank you.

[@CesareVesdani]

Do these folders have a special icon?

[@kingwesleyXIV]

I didn't know these thank you so much

[@NekoTheCatgirl]

Finally, you taught me how to remove microsoft edge from my start menu!

[@ErrorErrorErrorErrorError]

Microsoft edge is faster at installing Chrome than Chrome

[@Data_Graph]

Ive been googling where the startup folder is for so long, never knew there was a shortcut!

[@darryl.a]

thanks this will help me to personalize more my windows.

[@alepouna]

Really cool video. Saw a few apps you had installed and got interested by their name.. perhaps you can make a video with your most useful tools/apps you have installed? Would be cool :) Also I see LoL, poor soul!

[@sthecommenter76]

Knew none of em and will use them all as soon as possible.Nice video @ThioJoe

[@peterronhovde]

I definitely learned some stuff even after decades of being a Windows user. Thanks. I've always wondered how to change the SendTo folder in particular.

[@SMOHPAL]

Thanks for enhancing my PC skills better.

[@hrbeta]

Thank you, this was useful to me.

[@werrrnerrr]

Thank you for another informative and useful video! On a side note: I can really appreciate your effort to provide proper subtitles. I find those very useful. But are you aware that the hard coded captions you also show in some places in your videos are often (partially) obscured by the subtitles? If I want to read those in full I often have to rewind a few seconds and momentarily turn of the subtitles and then turn them back on again. It's just a minor annoyance, but maybe you could place the hard coded captions somewhere else in frame? Just a little bit higher up would suffice.

[@exoticlol]

You can move the subtitles on dekstop. Just drag them.

[@FadlySansan]

@@exoticlol TIL! thanks

[@amirhosseinmaghsoodi388]

I learned most of this when I was creating batch files to run emulation directly. So I learned how to add shortcuts to them to the start menu so that search would show them. And I learned the taskbar one because when I reinstalled windows I copied my old user account contents to a new user and my pinned apps weren't there. When I pinned them again they had (2) in the name. So I found them and deleted the old ones and then renamed them.

[@Mike.Kachar]

Awesome video, awesome info - thanks!!

[@crazymetallian]

hey thanks a lot Thio, this is very usefull for kiosk machines

[@partygrove5321]

Thanks Thio, you are the Windows guru

[@cpuuk]

Thanks, learnt something new.

[@RolandHazoto]

Take Ownership can give you access to UWP folders but it also commonly breaks the apps, so use with caution.

[@lisaismyult5018]

Hello how do you access the games that being downloaded from ms store like i meant to access the folder what permission do i need to set? not sayint about the xbox app store.

[@kjyu4539]

startup and sendto folders where quite useful for me and i still use them for some advanced/custom tasks (mostly done via batch files)

[@xntumrfo9ivrnwf]

Biggest mind-blown from this video is learning that Power Automate exists. Now I've fallen down a rabbit hole learning how to automate some browser stuff I do

[@shadowtabbys]

Thank you, I didn't know about some of these.

[@janwesten1317]

In Windows 7, you could easily open a lot of those folders from the Start menu using the context (right-click) menu. Those were the days...

[@iggyiggz1999]

The sendto folder is SUPER useful!

[@hamza-mcr]

Amazing! Keep the good work up! 👍

[@CristianTheRich]

Thank you Thio, Very cool!

[@RoboGameOfficial]

for the shell startup, once you have the program in the folder, you can use task manager to disable and enable it and see the startup impact on your system

[@CyberSlugGump]

If you want to prevent a shortcut in the Startup folder from running but don't want to delete it, checking the hidden attribute (or Attrib +h) will do that. Also, I've found that shortcuts marked to run as administrator won't launch from Startup--not sure if lowering UAC changes that. I bummed you can hide fonts but you still cannot hide printers (which would be helpful for users at my workplace).

[@lorenakademar5267]

Thank your Thio, very interesting!

[@johnburgess2084]

All good stuff to know. Thanks.

[@pierrekilgoretrout3143]

I am using the Send To folder trick to with .bat files to perform useful custom actions on files, such as create an archive or suffix with a new version number, very useful

[@OmegaBlack999]

Omg.. where has THIS video been? XD Super useful stuff, especially for issues I've personally had over the years. Thanks SO much for another awesome and helpful video, ThioJoe! Love you!

[@obaid.mohiuddin]

This channel is gold

[@ludvikskp]

actually very useful, thanks