How to Get Classic XP Styled Navigation Pane Back in Windows 7 Explorer?

We all know that Windows 7 Explorer is pretty much different from XP Explorer. In most of the cases its better than XP Explorer but one thing is really missing in Windows 7 Explorer and that is the good old Navigation pane. Windows 7 Explorer doesn't provide following 2 important features which can be found in XP Explorer:

• Windows XP Explorer shows a tree structure of all folders in Navigation pane.
• Windows XP Explorer Navigation pane automatically expands the content of the selected folder.

Also Windows XP Explorer Navigation pane is simple and minimal. It only shows the drives and folders list under My Computer icon where as Windows 7 Explorer shows lots of unnecessary items like Favorites, Libraries, Homegroup and Network.
Today in this tutorial, we'll learn how to get Windows XP styled Navigation pane back in Windows 7 Explorer.
After following this tutorial, your Windows 7 Explorer Navigation pane will look like following screenshot:

As you can see in above screenshot, the Navigation pane looks very close to XP one. So without wasting any time, lets start the tutorial:
STEP 1: First you'll need to remove the unnecessary items from Navigation pane like Favorites, Homegroup, etc. You can follow following tutorials to remove the desired items:

• How to Remove "Favorites" from Windows 7 Explorer's Navigation Pane?
• How to Remove "Libraries" from Windows 7 Explorer's Navigation Pane?
• How to Remove "Homegroup" from Windows 7 Explorer's Navigation Pane?
• How to Remove "Network" from Windows 7 Explorer's Navigation Pane?

STEP 2: After removing the items, right-click on empty area in Navigation pane and select "Expand to current folder" option.

That's it. Now Windows 7 Explorer Navigation pane will automatically expand content of the selected folder and will work like the good old XP Explorer.

Posted in: win 7