When you open Windows 10’s File Explorer with default settings, the File Explorer opens to Quick Access. In the earlier versions of the Windows operating system, the File Explorer opened to This PC as there was no concept of Quick Access.
The Quick Access displays a list of recently opened files at the bottom and frequently opened folders at the top, as you might be familiar with. Quick Access is very convenient as we can access our frequent folders and recent files without requiring navigating to their respective directories.
The Quick Access feature is quite popular among Windows 10 users. Most users love this feature. Although Quick Access does not display your disk drives like This PC, you can access all the drives by expanding This PC in the left navigation pane. Besides that, you can also pin drives to the Quick Access section, which appears at the top of the navigation pane.
But if you primarily use your computer to consume content rather than creating, you might want to configure the File Explorer open to the classic This PC instead of Quick Access.
The Windows 10 team knows about this requirement. Therefore, there is an option in Folder Options to configure the File Explorer to open This PC by default.
Here is how to configure the File Explorer to open This PC by default.
Open File Explorer to This PC in Windows 10
Step 1: Open the File Explorer. Click on the File menu and then click Options or Change folder and search options. Doing so will open the Folder Options dialog.
Step 2: Under the General tab, select This PC from the drop-down box next to Open File Explorer to option.
Click on the Apply button. That is all you need to do.
Way to quickly access your favorite folders in Windows 10
Did you know that you can quickly access your favorite folders right from the taskbar? The taskbar jump list feature can be used to access your folders quickly.
Step 1: Open the File Explorer. Right-click on its icon on the taskbar and then click on the Pin to taskbar option.
Step 2: Right-click on the folder that you would like to access quickly from the taskbar and click the Pin to Quick Access option. The folder should now show up in the Quick Access section.
Step 3: From now on, you can quickly access the folder from the taskbar by right-clicking on the File Explorer icon and then clicking the folder name (in the jump list).
Alternatively, you can also pin folders to the taskbar for quick access.