Hide the left pane in Windows Explorer

I use Windows Explorer all day. Today I finally decided to look up how to hide that pesky task pane on the left.

This is the pane that appears when you have deselected both the Search and Folders buttons. It fills up the screen when all I want to see is a list of files in a folder.

I found the answer here: http://malektips.com/xpwex0004.html. Thankyou Google.

To hide the Tasks Pane in Windows Explorer:

1. Open Windows Explorer.


2. Click Tools -> Folder Options.


3. On the General tab, select the Show common tasks in folders option.

This means that I'll miss out on the cool stuff in this tab, such as helpful tasks for images, and the CD-burning tasks. I'm happy to live without these.