Hiding an Individual Library

Open the Libraries window or open Windows Explorer and select Libraries. In the Navigation pane, right-click the library that you want to hide and a popup menu will be displayed. Out of the options, select “Don’t show in navigation pane”.

The library you selected will now be absent from the Navigation pane, but it will still be in the right pane of the Libraries window. In order to add it back to the Navigation Pane, right-click on the library in the right pane and a similar popup window will open as before. Select the option “Show in navigation pane”.

You may also delete a library if you want to. This is not the same thing as hiding a library. To delete a library, follow the same steps as you would for hiding a library but select “Delete” instead. If you do this either by accident or purposely, it is simple to get it back if you right-click on Libraries in the Navigation pane and click “Restore default libraries” from the menu.

Another option is to collapse the list if you would rather not hide or delete the library from the Navigation pane. This will collapse the list entirely, getting the libraries list out of the way. Right-click the Libraries link and, as usual, a popup menu will open. From the list, select “Collapse”. Once the list is collapsed, it is only temporary. If you click the arrow next to the Libraries link, the list will expand. You can collapse it again by clicking the same arrow.

If, for some reason, you are displeased with the Windows 7 Libraries feature, it is possible to completely remove the link from the Navigation pane. Included below is a registry hack that will accomplish this. This is not a manual registry hack but two .reg files that will save all the trouble of the multiple steps it will take to do this manually. This will not only remove the Libraries link from the pane, it will disable the shell extension in the registry and you will no longer be able to access any of the libraries. Fortunately, another hack is included to enable the Libraries feature again.

DisableLibariesFeature (via How To Geek)

To disable the Libraries feature, double-click DisableLibrariesFeature.reg. Now close all Explorer windows and logoff then logon again. The feature will now be disabled. A reversal is included to enable the Libraries feature. To re-enable the Libraries feature, double-click EnableLibrariesFeature.reg. then logoff and logon as you did in the step to disable the feature.

Windows users who want better manageability of the library feature can use tools like the Windows 7 Library Tool or Librarian for that.

Not every Windows 7 user needs all the links and items in the Windows 7 navigation pane. There is however no direct option to hide them in Windows Explorer. The only known way is to hide them using the Windows Registry.

Windows users who are not using the Homegroup, Network, Favorites or Library feature might want to hide them to reduce the clutter from the navigation pane. This has the additional benefit that the remaining items are easier accessible.

Hide the Homegroup item from Windows Explorer

Open the Windows Registry editor by clicking on the start button in the taskbar, typing in regedit into the run form and selecting regedit.exe from the available results.

Navigate to the Registry key

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{B4FB3F98-C1EA-428d-A78A-D1F5659CBA93}\ShellFolder

You now need to change the value of the key Attributes from b084010c to b094010c. You first need permission to do that. Right-click on ShellFolder and select Permissions from the context menu.

Select the user profile of the logged in user and click the Allow Full Control box to give the user full control over the key.

Accept the changes and double-click Attributes again afterwards. Enter the new value b094010c into the form and click ok to accept the change.

Hide the Libraries item from Windows Explorer

Open the Registry editor as outlined above. Navigate to the Registry key

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{031E4825-7B94-4dc3-B131-E946B44C8DD5}\ShellFolder

Double-click the key Attributes and change the value from b080010d to b090010d. You need to have permissions to do that. Perform the same steps as above to get the permissions for the ShellFolder key.

Hide the Network item from Windows Explorer

Navigate to the following Registry key

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{F02C1A0D-BE21-4350-88B0-7367FC96EF3C}\ShellFolder

Change the permissions of the key to give the active user full control over the key. Double-click the Attributes value afterwards and change its value from b0040064 to b0940064.

Hide the Favorites item from Windows Explorer

Navigate to the Registry key

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{323CA680-C24D-4099-B94D-446DD2D7249E}\ShellFolder

Change the permissions of that key so that the current user has full control over the key. Then double-click on attributes and change the value from a0900100 to a9400100.

Hide the Computer item from Windows Explorer

Perform the same steps as outlined in the Homegroup removal guide. The Registry key that you need to navigate to is

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{20D04FE0-3AEA-1069-A2D8-08002B30309D}\ShellFolder

You now need to create a Dword by right-clicking in the right column and selecting new > Dword 32-bit from the menu. Name the new Dword Attributes and give it the value b094010c.

The changes can be reverted by deleting the Attributes key.

Final Step

The changes are not visible immediately. You can restart the computer, log off and on again or kill the explorer.exe process in the task manager to see the updated navigation pane in Windows Explorer.

Do you have another helpful Windows Explorer tip? Let us know in the comments.

Libraries are by default however limited. It is for instance not possible to add a network location to a library. Trying to do so will result in the error message “This network location can’t be included because it is not indexed” or “This folder cannot be included because it is on a share that is not indexed”.

Microsoft has made available a command line utility that they appropriately named slutil.exe (no joke) which can be used to add network shares or locations to Windows 7 libraries.

A command line tool is usually not the most comfortable option as most users prefer to use graphical user interfaces.

That’s why the Win7 Library Tool was created by Zorn Software.

The software program that is compatible with Windows 7 provides the following functionality:

• Add network (UNC or mapped drive) and any other un-indexed folders to libraries.

• Backup library configuration, such that a saved set of libraries can be instantly restored at any point (like after a re-install of the OS or for transfer between multiple computers).

• Create a mirror of all libraries (using symbolic links) in [SystemDrive]:\libraries.  This means you can reference all your files using a much shorter path, and also provides another entry-point to your files in many places in the Operating System (e.g. file open/save dialogs).

• Change a library’s icon.

The program is controlled by the icons in the status bar. The leftmost icon loads the existing libraries of the operating system. Other controls can be used to import or export libraries, create and delete libraries as well as to edit existing libraries.

Win7 Library Tool can be downloaded from the developer’s website.

Media Transfer Protocol (MTP) is utilised on a range of devices, but especially so by Creative. Creative Zens (and their variants) utilise the protocol. Whilst the Creative NOMAD isn’t MTP, it too uses an awkward protocol not natively supported by OS X. The infamous Zune (in the eyes of an Apple fanboy) too uses MTP, however, Microsoft make it very difficult to transfer data to.

XNJB is a piece of software that provides a graphical front-end to a libnjb and libmtp: free and open source libraries that allow communication with devices like Creative NOMADs and Creative Zens. Unfortunately, neither support the Zune, due to additional restrictions Microsoft put in place. The libraries work on other POSIX operating systems, like Linux, but XNJB does not.

XNJB allows users to upload and download songs from their media players, for ID3 data to be edited and devices searched. All of this has to be done within the software; it is not integrated into iTunes or Finder.

The transfer of data felt a bit slow to me, but I expect this is primarily due to the messiness of my library and the nature of Media Transfer Protocol.

This software is, however, a useful tool when you first got the Mac. I do, though, doubt you could realistically continue to use a MTP device successfully with OS X. Naturally, you could use it inside Boot Camp or a virtual machine, but in my opinion, that too is not an ideal option.

Compatible devices are listed on their website.