Adding the 12 hive to VS.NET File Dialogs

This is something that has bugged me for ages but I've never got around to finding the time to look at it - wouldn't it be nice to have a shortcut to the 12 hive in the left-hand shortcuts panel in the Open, Save, Add New Item etc. dialogs in VS.NET – I know I'd like it !! Kudos to my new colleague Stephen Kaye for taking the time to find out how to do it.

• Open Word and click on File -> Open to display the Open File dialog.
  
• Navigate to the 12 hive.
  
• Right-click in the left-hand shortcuts panel and select "Add 12" from the pop-up menu:
  

• This will have added a shortcut to the 12 hive to your dialogs within Word.
  
• Now open regedit and navigate to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\12.0\Common\Open Find\Places\UserDefinedPlaces.


• Assuming that you only have one custom location defined (i.e. the 12 hive you've just added) then there'll be a key called "Place0" – right click on this and export it somewhere, say to your desktop and call it "word.reg".
  
• Edit the word.reg file in Notepad or your favourite text editor (mine being Notepad++) and replace the key string at the top of the file with the following instead:
  

  [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\VisualStudio\8.0\Open Find\Places\UserDefinedPlaces\Place0]

  Your file should now look like this:
  

• Save this file and close the editor, and then double-click on the word.reg file on your desktop to enter the new information into the registry.
  
• Voila – you'll now have the 12 hive as a shortcut in your dialogs within VS.NET.
  

You can also do a similar thing with document libraries etc to open / save files directly to web locations.

Hope this is useful.