How can I edit the default Places bar quick links in Windows XP's and Windows 2000's Open and Save common dialog boxes?

A. You can modify the five default quick links in the Open and Save common dialog boxes by performing the following steps:

1. Start a registry editor (e.g., regedit.exe).
2. Navigate to the HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\comdlg32 subkey. (If this subkey doesn't exist, select New, Key from the Edit menu to create it.)
3. From the Edit menu, select New, Key.
4. Enter a name of Placesbar and press Enter.
5. Navigate to the new registry subkey. You can create five entries (Place0, Place1, Place2, Place3, and Place4). Make each entry either a string value (REG_SZ) entry (for a named folder) or a DWORD value (REG_DWORD) entry (for a special folder, such as My Documents or My Network Places).
6. To create a new entry, go to the Edit menu, select New, DWORD Value or New, String Value (as appropriate), enter a name of Placen (e.g., Place0, Place4), and press Enter.
7. Double-click the entry and set its REG_SZ "Value data" to a path and folder name or its REG_DWORD "Value data" to a numeric ID (the table below shows a partial list of these numeric IDs--the shlobj.h file, which is part of the platform software development kit (SDK), defines the full list of special numeric IDs).
8. Close the registry editor.

For example, the registry file below sets shortcuts to My Documents, the CD burning folder, and three named folders.

 Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

 [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion Policies\comdlg32\Placesbar]
 "Place0"=dword:00000005
 "Place1"=dword:0000003b
 "Place2"="d:\\temp"
 "Place3"="d:\\documents"
 "Place4"="g:\\windows" 

This change will not affect applications within the Microsoft Office suite but will affect applications, such as Notepad and Paint, that use the Open and Save common dialog boxes. Each new entry you add will replace one of the default quick links.