Alias/shortcut in windows explorer address bar

Question

The question comes from when opening 'Run' in start menu (windows key+R) and enter system32 will open up an explorer and directly go to C:\WINDOWS\system32. Q1: how to make my own alias, so when I enter photos, it brings me to c:\photos

Q2: Is there any way to use alias in windows explorer address bar similar to that? Say enter photos in address bar and go to c:\photos

Thanks

Answer 1

That is no alias, it's just the Run dialog automatically looking in the directories given by the PATH environment variable. If you include C:\ in your PATH then you should be able to type photos into the Run dialog and get an Explorer window in C:\Photos (not that I'd recommend having random personal directories in a location where you don't even have write access ... but anyway).

The explorer's address bar works differently, though. It can only start programs that are somewhere in the PATH with the current directory as their starting working directory. Well, and it can navigate to folders by full path, library name or to web pages.