The default Windows 'Save As...' or 'Open' dialog box has five different shortcuts on the left hand side — History, Desktop, My Documents, My Computer and My Network Places. As a matter of fact these are not shortcuts at all — you have to browse to some other folder of your choice. What if you can customize these links, much like Linux desktops?

Enter Places Utility. It's a nifty application that does this job with ease. It offers a very intuitive options dialog, which lets you configure the shortcuts.

Once you set up these options, it changes the Open or Save As... dialog with the custom settings.

If you are download-heavy user or if save a lot of web-contents to your machine, this utility is just for you. Even for average users, this application is useful as it gives quick access to the places you most likely to save files.

Places Utility is available for free at Simpli Software. It's 622KiB is size.