Look, we have no idea why anyone would want to skin a cat. All we know is that there's more than one way to do it. And so if Side by Side Explorer doesn't give the Vista version of Windows Explorer all the features you're looking for, QT TabBar just might.

QT TabBar lets you add tabbed browsing to Windows Explorer, which is useful. But the thing that's been driving us crazy since we started using Windows Vista was the lack of an "up" button in Windows Explorer. There's a back button to take you to the window you had previously been viewing. But there's no button to take you to take you from a subfolder to a main folder. QT TabBar lets you add this button and a few other things.

Installation is a tiny bit tricky. After you download and install the setup file (by right-clicking and running "as administrator,") you have to restart your computer or use Task Manager to kill and restart the explorer process. Once you've done that you have to go into Windows Explorer, click the Alt button to bring up a file menu, and right click on the toolbar to enable QT TabBar and QT Tab Standard buttons. There are a ton of customization options, so set aside some time to explore.

One thing that caught us off guard was the lack of a "new tab" button. You can create a new tab by cloning your current tab. But you can't start a blank tab. However, if you right click on any folder and select "open" instead of "explorer," the folder will open in a new tab.

[via The How To Geek]

One of the more popular "improvements" in Windows Vista is the inclusion of "bread crumbs" in Windows Explorer. Instead of the old fashioned "c:\program files\mozilla\firefox" addresses, Windows Vista provides you with a series of triangles. Click on one to get a list of folders you can visit.

Up until now, there's been no way to revert to the old address bar. Sure, if you click on the address box, it shows up. But as soon as you click away, it's gone. If you can't stand bread crumbs, you were out of luck. But not anymore.

Andreas Verhoeven has developed a little utility that lets you disable bread crumbs. All you have to do is download and unzip the file, double click on AveNoBreadCrumb.exe and open a new explorer window. Your bread crumbs should be gone. Double clicking again will restore them.

Yes, FolderMarker is yet another way to color or otherwise mark the folders in Windows Explorer in different ways, to make it easier to find the important ones. Yes, we've covered other similar utilities with similar functions in the past, but FolderMarker is worth considering since it not only allows you to set the color of folders, but also assign meaningful icons to them. So now rather than having to create a system in your head where red folders are important, and blue are private, now you can just use the "important" and "private" icons - much easier to figure out. And it's free, which is always good.

Related posts:

• iColorFolder: Color-code your Windows folders
• Easier Windows navigation with custom icons