The so called Places Bar is a sidebar on the right side of Open and Save dialogs in Windows and Office that provides the user with a way to access specific folders faster.
It shows My Recent Documents, Desktop, My Documents, My Computer and My Network Places by default and there is no apparent way to change or edit the default places with locations that the user may use more often.
A user without a network connection would probably like to see a different folder in the Places Bar instead of the My Network Places link.
Users can either edit the five quick links in the Windows Registry which is not as trivial as it sounds or use an application like Places Bar Editor (via Lifehacker) to edit one or multiple of these locations comfortably.
The software is compatible to Windows ME, 2000, XP and Windows Vista and supports the (different) Places Bar of Microsoft Office, or precisely Microsoft Office 2007, 2003, 2000 and XP, which is different from the standard Places Bar.
The software displays the five places that can be changed in tabs for Windows and Microsoft Office. You can switch between them but need to edit them both even if you want the places to be identical for Windows and Office dialogs
You may pick system folders by using a pulldown menu that include direct links to popular locations such as the desktop, send to folder, or printers, or chose a custom folder from one of the connected hard drives or network connections instead to place it in the Places bar.
Please note that all five locations will change even if you only edit some of them. By default all are shown as Desktop links and you could end up with one custom link and four links to your Desktop if you change only the first quick link manually.
Update: The program is only compatible with Windows Vista and earlier versions of Windows, and Microsoft Office 2007, and earlier versions of Office. Newer versions of Windows and Office support sidebar customization options by default which means that it is no longer necessary to use a third-party program for that.