What I would like to know ... is that the best way to accomplish what I am trying to do which is, in a nutshell, have access to all drives and folders but also be able to work within a subset of just my folders.
If this is the best way, then I have another question:
If I am using moving through the favorites folder in the left hand side... then double-click a folder in the right hand window (remember explore/details) - instead of expanding the Favorites subfoders and being moved into the Favorites folder/subfolder, I am moved back up into the actual drive/folder tree, with everything expanding and cluttering up my explorer tree.
Is there any way to make the double-click in the right-hand window expanding the fav. tree.
Which way is best will depend on what you like I guess. There are other ways of doing the same thing.
You can make toolbars or menus with buttons to go to common paths. You can do that using Favorites (which you can filter by category or path if you only want to see part of the list) or by creating individual buttons for each path.
You can create Tab Groups which open tabs for each of your common paths, so they're always there when you need them.
If you use the keyboard a lot, you can bind hotkeys to certain paths and you can also create aliases which give you quick access to common folders. (e.g. I can type /d to go to my downloads folder.)
If the list of paths is dynamic -- e.g. you want quick access to everything in MyMainFolder and MyPersonalFolder, but what's in there changes over time -- then you can create a toolbar and/or menu which lists those paths for you to click on. (See here and here.)
You could also have a "home" folder with shortcuts to the common folders. Or probably a bunch of other ways I haven't thought of...
As for favorites in the folder tree, no they don't expand. If you go to a sub-folder or the parent folder then you'll jump to the "real" location in the main part of the folder tree.
Leo, thanks very much for the ideas. A big help as I wasn't sure the best way to accomplish what I was looking for and didn't know how to search for it in help
Will go through the options you suggested and see which best fits my needs
I forgot to mention Styles and Layouts which can be used to take you to one or more paths.
Styles affect the current window and can change which path(s) and/or tabs(s) it displays and/or the display mode etc.
Layouts let you set up one or more windows and then save them for later recall, reopening them in the same physical layout with the same folders, view modes, etc.