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.