I don't know what Windows version you're running, but on the Windows 8 partition on my laptop, it shows the full path with prettified separators, showing the plaintext when you select the path.

And that same way of doing things would work quite well for a web browser, IMHO.

There are many annoyances I have with Windows, and Windows 8 specifically. That is not one of them.

I remember when they split the full file path into clickable pieces for each directory, making the fully-visible path even more prominent and interactable than before.

When did they remove the path?

In Windows 7, if I go to a folder in my home directory, it doesn't show c:\users\sp332\Downloads\foo instead it shows sp332 -> Downloads -> foo. The c:\users part is removed.

Your user directory is a browsing root, along with "Computer" and "Favorites" and "Network". From whatever root you pick, it will always show the entire path if there is enough space. If you browse to the same folder from C it will show "> Computer > C > Users > sp322 > Downloads > foo"

So that's just some multiple mount point weirdness, not removing the path.

Apparently Windows 8 still has this option:

http://www.eightforums.com/attachments/tutorials/7526d134379...

(There are many things I dislike about the UI in Windows 8, but MS has not removed configuration and features quite as aggressively as others.)