Windows 11 File Explorer: How To Expand Left Pane By Default

Windows 11 23H2

When I open file explorer from the taskbar, I have configured file Explorer so that Explorer's right pane opens to the folder structure I want: C:\GandD

However, the left pane only shows "OS (C"

I want the left pane to automatically by default expand "C" so that the folder structure under "C" is always displayed. I do have "Expand to current folder" checked but this does not make any difference.

How do I accomplish this?

 

1. Right-click the Explorer shortcut on your taskbar and "Unpin from Taskbar" to remove it.
   
2. Right-click your desktop and point to New > Shortcut.
   
   
3. In the Shortcut box, use the example I gave:
   
   %windir%\explore.exe c:\folder
   
   (replace c:\folder with the place you want the shortcut to open).
   
   
4. Drag this new shortcut to the taskbar to pin it there (or right-click if you want to put it on your Start page too).

From Microsoft Answers
Also AskLeo has a slight different method
And SuperUser

Edit the following registry subkey:

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Folder\shell\explore\ddeexec

If you change this subkey's default value to [ExploreFolder("yourNetworkDrive", yourNetworkDrive, %S)], you force Windows Explorer to start at the drive you specify.

Replace yourNetworkDrive with the drive you want. If the drive is mapped as S:, the string would be [ExploreFolder("S:\", S:\, %S)].

To present a single-pane Windows Explorer view, you can change ExploreFolder to ViewFolder.