How to restore Videos, Pictures, and other folders in This PC in Windows 11

Recently we had several users of our file manager AB Commander to contact us in a bit of a panic, reporting that the trusted This PC folder no longer contained the folders they come to love, such as Downloads, Music, Pictures, and Videos:

There was only a group of icons named Devices and drives which was nice to have but clearly not enough, our customers wanted other folders to be there as well, and better sooner than later!

We put our investigative hats on and got to work. Turns out this change happened on some Windows 11 computers after they were upgraded to the latest release 22H2 (or newer). Also, it affected not only AB Commander but File Explorer, too:

Windows 11 made available a new folder called Home (used to be called Quick access in Windows 10) that still showed the Documents and other folders, along with the recently opened documents and folders, but that clearly was not enough for our customers, they wanted such folders to appear in This PC, too.

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It appears that the folders are still there, except Microsoft decided for some reason that they should be hidden in This PC folder by default. It's possible to make them visible, by adjusting a few values in Windows Registry. We've put the necessary changes into a registry file that you can download using the following link:

ThisPCFolders-Show.reg

Right-click on the link above and choose Save link as (or similar) command to save the file to your PC. If your security settings prevent you from saving such files, you can recreate the file yourself: just copy the following text, paste it into Notepad, and save the file as ThisPCFolders-Show.reg:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\MyComputer\NameSpace\{088e3905-0323-4b02-9826-5d99428e115f}]
@="CLSID_ThisPCLocalDownloadsRegFolder"
"HideIfEnabled"=-

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\MyComputer\NameSpace\{24ad3ad4-a569-4530-98e1-ab02f9417aa8}]
@="CLSID_ThisPCLocalPicturesRegFolder"
"HideIfEnabled"=-

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\MyComputer\NameSpace\{3dfdf296-dbec-4fb4-81d1-6a3438bcf4de}]
@="CLSID_ThisPCLocalMusicRegFolder"
"HideIfEnabled"=-

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\MyComputer\NameSpace\{d3162b92-9365-467a-956b-92703aca08af}]
@="CLSID_ThisPCLocalDocumentsRegFolder"
"HideIfEnabled"=-

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\MyComputer\NameSpace\{f86fa3ab-70d2-4fc7-9c99-fcbf05467f3a}]
@="CLSID_ThisPCLocalVideosRegFolder"
"HideIfEnabled"=-

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\MyComputer\NameSpace\{B4BFCC3A-DB2C-424C-B029-7FE99A87C641}]
@="CLSID_ThisPCDesktopRegFolder"
"HideIfEnabled"=-

Regardless of the way you've obtained the file, use File Explorer or AB Commander to navigate to it and double-click it to open. Windows will probably warn you about opening registry files with a message like similar to this:

If you choose to continue, the necessary adjustments will be made to the Registry and the folders should appear in the This PC folder (you may need to refresh the view of File Explorer or AB Commander by pressing F5)

What if you decide later on that you no longer want to see the folders in This PC? No problem, you can easily make them hidden again using the following registry file:

ThisPCFolders-Hide.reg

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\MyComputer\NameSpace\{088e3905-0323-4b02-9826-5d99428e115f}]
@="CLSID_ThisPCLocalDownloadsRegFolder"
"HideIfEnabled"=dword:022ab9b9

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\MyComputer\NameSpace\{24ad3ad4-a569-4530-98e1-ab02f9417aa8}]
@="CLSID_ThisPCLocalPicturesRegFolder"
"HideIfEnabled"=dword:022ab9b9

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\MyComputer\NameSpace\{3dfdf296-dbec-4fb4-81d1-6a3438bcf4de}]
@="CLSID_ThisPCLocalMusicRegFolder"
"HideIfEnabled"=dword:022ab9b9

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\MyComputer\NameSpace\{d3162b92-9365-467a-956b-92703aca08af}]
@="CLSID_ThisPCLocalDocumentsRegFolder"
"HideIfEnabled"=dword:022ab9b9

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\MyComputer\NameSpace\{f86fa3ab-70d2-4fc7-9c99-fcbf05467f3a}]
@="CLSID_ThisPCLocalVideosRegFolder"
"HideIfEnabled"=dword:022ab9b9

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\MyComputer\NameSpace\{B4BFCC3A-DB2C-424C-B029-7FE99A87C641}]
@="CLSID_ThisPCDesktopRegFolder"
"HideIfEnabled"=dword:022ab9b9

You can use these two registry files as often as you like, turning the folders on and off, just don't forget to press F5 to refresh the view of This PC and make it reflect the changes.

Happy computing!

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