Answer Line: What Apps Should I Use to Open Mystery Files?

Customize Dialog Boxes

Can I customize the Places Bar in Internet Explorer 6's Save As dialog box so the icons point to my favorites rather than to Microsoft's?

James L. McCrystal, Jr., Cleveland

The Places Bar is a column of shortcut icons located on the left side of Windows' standard File Open and File Save dialog boxes. The easiest way to customize it is by using Microsoft's Tweak UI freeware. There are separate versions of Tweak UI for Windows XP and for every other version of Windows; the XP version is part of PowerToys for Windows XP. Download the version for your OS at PowerToys for Windows XP (scroll down as needed).

Windows XP: After you download and install PowerToys for Windows XP, select Start, All Programs, Powertoys for Windows XP, TweakUI for Windows XP. In the left pane, click Common Dialogs. For further instructions, skip to "All versions" below.

All other Windows versions: Once you've successfully downloaded and installed Tweak UI, select Start, Settings, Control Panel, and double-click Tweak UI (in Windows Me, you may have to click view all Control Panel options first). If you find that your Tweak UI dialog box doesn't include three rows of tabs, upgrade to the current version. Click the Open tab.

All versions: Click the Custom places bar radio button. Below that, you'll find five pull-down menus representing the five Places icons. You can change any icon by selecting a different folder from the pull-down menu or by typing the full path to a different folder (see FIGURE 1).