[How To] Remove “Libraries” From Windows 7 Navigation Pane

As part of tweaking the Navigation pane in Windows 7 explorer series, we have already discussed about removing “Favorites” from the windows explorer navigation pane. If you don’t use the “Libraries” much, you might also want to hide this from showing up. Now let’s look into how to remove “Libraries” from the windows 7 explorer.

Libraries in windows 7 navigation pane

Method-I

Steps:

1. Press Start button + R to open the run command bar. Type “regedit” in the filed and hit enter to open the registry editor.

regedit run command

2. Navigate to the following address in the Registry Editor.

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{031E4825-7B94-4DC3-B131-E946B44C8DD5}\ShellFolder

ShellFolder for libraries in registry editor

3. You need special permissions to change the values inside this folder. To get permissions, right-click on the “ShellFolder” and click Permissions.

ShellFolder permissions for libraries reg entries

4. In the next step, check under the Allow option right next to Full Control for the user name “Administrators”. Click OK to close the window and you would be back in your Registry Editor.

ShellFolder permissions options

5. Double click on the Attributes registry DWORD.

Attributes reg values in libraries shellfolder

6. Change its value data from the default b080010d to a new value: b090010d.

Attributes reg values shellfolder default Dword

Attributes reg values shellfolder new Dword

7. Click OK to save the changes and close the Registry Editor.

8. Open the Task Manager, go to Processes tab, end the process explorer.exe. All your active explorer windows will now be closed.

End process explorer in task manager

9. Go to File > New Task (Run..) in the Task Manager and type explorer to run the explorer.exe again.

New task from Task manager

Now you would find that the “Libraries” link from the Navigation pane disappeared as shown.

Navigation pane without libraries

If you want to get it back, just go back to the step 6 and change the value data back to the default b080010d .

Method II: The Easy Way

If you don’t want to go through all the above hassles, we have a much simpler solution for you. Just download the following file:

Disable Libraries In Explorer

Once you download the above .reg file, right-click on it and choose “merge” and that’s it, restart the explorer by following the step 8 and step 9 and you will no longer see the Libraries in the Navigation pane.

To get back the Libraries into your Windows 7 explorer, download the following file,

Enable Libraries In Explorer

Right-click on it and select merge. The Libraries will again start to appear once you restart the explorer.

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1 thought on “[How To] Remove “Libraries” From Windows 7 Navigation Pane”

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    1. How does a user know they are on your web site and not a copy of your web site.
    2. Scammers will frequently copy whole web sites to replace the RUN A FREE SCAN with their own.
    3. With their own free scan they have FULL access to a users computer, memory, registry and all email sdresses both in and out,
    4. With registry access they can obtain the registration details of every application installed on the computer.
    5. The web sites that offer very cheap software use serial numbers and registration details obtained in this manner predominately out of Russia or Russian Federations.
    6. No-one should EVER run a FREE SCAN because they NEVER know WHO IS DOING THE SCAN
    7. Tell users they can run their own scan with a product like Nortons, you could even offer it at a special discount price.  But don’t buy the Nortons from a cheap Russian site.

    Regards
    Brian

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