Windows XP Tips - Customize the Windows Explorer Toolbar

Posted on April 11, 2007 at 9:30 pm

I’ve been using Windows XP for 6 years now and only recently did I ever bother to customize the toolbar! But if you want more useful buttons other than the button to change your “View” of the files, then this is the way to do it.

First off, open My Computer from your desktop or Start menu. In order to customize the toolbar, you need to right-click on an open space on the bar and choose Customize.

Now you’ll get the Customize Toolbar dialog where you can choose from the available buttons on the left and the ones you currently have that are on the right. If you scroll down a bit on the left menu, you’ll see some buttons that prove to be quite useful such as Move To, Copy To, Delete, Undo, Properties (instead of having to right-click on a file and choose Properties), Cut, Copy, Paste, and Folder Options.

You can choose whether or not you want the text with the button and whether you want small icons or large icons. After I customized by toolbar, I found myself using the Properties button and other buttons more frequently!

Here’s my toolbar with my newly added buttons off to the right:

Also, you can set to Explorer to show the Status Bar at the bottom of the window by going to View and choosing Status Bar.

You’ll get basic info about folders and files in the status bar. For example, if you open a folder, the status bar will automatically tell you how many objects are there: