Hawkscope is an free multi-platform productivity utility providing easy access to disk-drive contents via system tray icon, the dynamically populated pop-up menu provides fast access to the file-system without the need to open file-explorer and manual navigation, the best part is that Hawkscope is extensible via plugins and there are handy plugins available to check Gmail messages, tweeting, executing commands, and searching Google.

Direct Folders is yet another excellent free software from CodeSector, developers of fast file-copier TeraCopy, The small utility makes use of unused "double-click on empty space" action to pop-up an extensive, useful menu for quick and direct access to your favorite folders and applications directly from Desktop, Explorer or File Open/Save dialog box.

Direct Folders also allows you to automatically resize every standard file open/save dialog, letting you find what you looking for without much scrolling, another such useful feature is its ability to automatically switch the folder views of open dialogs to thumbnails, list or details depending on the application you are working with for example the application can be configured to automatically switch to Thumbnail view if you are working in Photoshop and to details view if working in Notepad, You can even select the preference of file sort order to be the default as well.