I am fairly new to Emacs and I have been trying to figure out how to change the default folder for `C-x C-f` on start-up. For instance when I first load Emacs and hit `C-x C-f` its default folder is `C:\emacs\emacs-21.3\bin`, but I would rather it be the desktop. I believe there is some way to customize the `.emacs` file to do this, but I am still unsure what that is.

Update: There are three solutions to the problem that I found to work, however I believe solution 3 is Windows only.

* Solution 1: Add `(cd "C:/Users/Name/Desktop")` to the `.emacs` file
* Solution 2: Add `(setq default-directory "C:/Documents and Settings/USER_NAME/Desktop/")` to the `.emacs` file
* Solution 3: Right click the Emacs short cut, hit properties and change the start in field to the desired directory.