If you’re like most people, you use the backspace key on your keyboard to delete text in Windows Explorer. But if you’re using Windows 7 or Vista, your backspace key doesn’t work the way it used to. In these versions of Windows, the backspace key goes down instead of up. Fortunately, there’s a quick and easy way to get your old backspace behavior back in Windows 7 and Vista: just follow these steps. To get the old backspace behavior in Windows 7 or Vista Explorer, first open the file explorer window by clicking on its icon on your desktop or Start menu. Then press and hold down the left mouse button while you click on the folder (or file) that you want to edit. When the context menu appears, release the left mouse button and select “Properties.” In the Properties window that opens, click on “Advanced” near the top of the window. In Advanced Properties dialog box that opens, under “File Types,” select “Folder.” Under “Folder Options,” make sure that “Backup Files and Directories” is checked and then click on OK. Click on OK again to close Advanced Properties dialog box. Now when you press Backspace (or Delete) in Windows Explorer, it will go up instead of down like it does in Windows 7 or Vista! ..
If you’ve used the key a couple of times, you might think I’m wrong—but you can easily test it out by going into one subfolder, then hitting Back, then going into another subfolder and hitting Back, then going into a third subfolder and hitting Back twice. You’ll end up in the previous subfolder.
If you want to go Up a folder in either Windows 7 or Vista, you can use the Alt+Up shortcut key, which will always go to the parent folder.
The Awesome AutoHotkey Fix
Now that we know the shortcut key that actually works in Windows 7, we can use a small script to make it work the way we really want it to. With AutoHotkey installed, create a new script with New –> AutoHotkey Script, and then paste in the following:
Thanks for finding this method goes to joeshmoo from the Productive Geek Forums, who tracked it down buried in an AutoHotkey forum thread. We modified the script slightly to make it work for Windows 7.
How Does This Work?
Ordinarily you can simply re-map the key with a Backspace::!{Up} type of deal, but since the backspace key is useful in the search box, location bar, and when you’re renaming files, you can’t just do a simple mapping—instead you have to check to see which control is active before sending the alternate Alt+Up key combination.
The first line with the #IfWinActive tells AHK to only activate this shortcut key override if Windows Explorer is the active window, which helps fix any possible conflicts in other applications.
The ControlGet and ControlGetFocus lines do the actual work of checking the status of the controls, and then depending on whether they are focused or you are in the process of renaming a file, it either sends the alternate Alt+Up or just sends the regular Backspace key.
Download a Pre-Made Application to Make Backspace Work like XP
Since the majority of you probably aren’t familiar with AutoHotkey, and don’t have any interest in how the scripts work, I’ve put together a customized version of the script as a tiny little executable that will run in the background.
It doesn’t take a ton of memory, as you can see in the screenshot.
To install HTGBack, just download, extract, and then create a shortcut in the shell:startup folder:
Double-click on the executable, and your Backspace key should start working like it used to in XP. Note that we only tested this on Windows 7, but assume it will work for Vista as well.
Download HTGBack XP-Style Backspace Key
This utility is licensed under the don’t-be-stupid license, which says that you can use it, distribute it, and pretty much do whatever you feel like with it—just give us credit by linking back to this post.
