Win Library Tool

(Later versions of Windows may have added some of this app's functionality, into File Explorer gui so check first).

From the developer: Windows libraries (introduced in Windows 7) could have been a really useful feature of Windows, however unfortunately they arrived in a slighly cut-down form out of the box. Microsoft decided against exposing some really useful capabilities to users, like adding network locations, pretty much the first thing I tried to do. You get this message:

windows7libraryerror

Luckily, you can add network locations (and any other un-indexed locations), but it must be done programatically. MS supply a command line utility slutil.exe, candidate for the worst named executable in history. Pretty sure it stands for shell_library_util. Anyway, I decided to write a tool to make it easy to add network locations, and added a few other features as well:

-Add network (UNC or mapped drive) and any other un-indexed folders to libraries. -Backup library configuration, such that a saved set of libraries can be instantly restored at any point (like after a re-install of the OS or for transfer between multiple computers). -Create a mirror of all libraries (using symbolic links) in [SystemDrive]:\libraries. This means you can reference all your files using a much shorter path, and also provides another entry-point to your files in many places in the Operating System (e.g. file open/save dialogs). -Change a library’s icon.