Tip 86: Automatically reopen folders after a restart of the OS

You can configure XP and later to automatically reopen any folders that were open before you shut down the machine.

To automatically reopen these folders, perform the following steps:

  1. Start a registry editor (e.g., regedit.exe).
  2. Navigate to the HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Advanced registry subkey.
  3. Double-click the PersistBrowsers value, or create this value of type DWORD if it doesn’t exist.
  4. Set the value data to
    1 to automatically reopen folders
    0 to not automatically reopen folders
    then click OK.
  5. Close the registry editor.