Stop Vista trying to be a smart-alec

Vertigo · 29 Mar 2008 at 18:45

Ok here's one thing that's getting right up my nose. Vista has decided that certain folders on my drives contain pictures or videos or whatever and has taken it upon itself to change the details view columns accordingly, so I don't have the standard type, date, size etc.

How do I reset all my folders back to the standard details view and stop it doing this in future? Yes I can manually reconfigure the columns in each folder one at a time but that's tedious in the extreme.

Oi Microsoft you bunch of arrogant *****, NO!!! :mad:

Vonny · 29 Mar 2008 at 19:02

Open a folder, set it to look how you want. Then go Tools>Folder Options>View and click 'apply to all folders'

That should do it, although some people have said Vista has a habit of messing them up again

Vertigo · 29 Mar 2008 at 20:19

Nope, has no effect whatsoever on the folders Vista has deigned to change

Eriedor · 29 Mar 2008 at 20:41

This is one of my view grievances with Vista, folder views change regularly for me without my approval.

Vonny · 29 Mar 2008 at 21:02

The fix for this is pretty complicated it seems, it's to do with folder 'templates' in Vista, you could try this -

http://forums.mydigitallife.info/showthread.php?t=871

But be sure to back up your registry if you try it.

Shadowness · 29 Mar 2008 at 21:07

This may help too:
http://www.vistax64.com/tutorials/70819-windows-explorer-folder-view-settings.html

Vonny · 29 Mar 2008 at 21:10

Yeah, Shadowness, that's a tutorial for the 'templates' thing I was on about, nice one.

NathanE · 29 Mar 2008 at 21:22

For the record this happened on XP too. It's annoying as sin.

badbob · 29 Mar 2008 at 21:26

NathanE said:
For the record this happened on XP too. It's annoying as sin.

No, once you set "Apply to all windows" never goes back.

Clarkey · 29 Mar 2008 at 21:35

badbob said:
No, once you set "Apply to all windows" never goes back.

did on my XP.

Vonny · 29 Mar 2008 at 21:41

badbob said:
No, once you set "Apply to all windows" never goes back.

Are you guys on about "Apply to all Folders"?

NathanE · 29 Mar 2008 at 21:47

badbob said:
No, once you set "Apply to all windows" never goes back.

Nope I know of loads of XP installs where it happens. Even Server 2003 does it. If you have a folder of WAV files it will just automagically at some random point in time decide to turn it into a music folder so it removes all the useful timestamp columns and replaces them with crap like "bit rate" "artist" "album" and all this other crap nobody wants.

modo77 · 29 Mar 2008 at 22:25

As mentioned it does this on all the recent os's, ms said it would be sorted on Vista and if you look on the list of bug/fixes to be included in windows 7 its on that too. I'm sure they'll sort it sometime.

Inquisitor · 29 Mar 2008 at 22:31

NathanE said:
For the record this happened on XP too. It's annoying as sin.

Yep. I was hoping they'd fixed this with Vista but apparently not

What I find most annoying is that Windows will periodically just change your folder view settings to any old view. For example, yesterday, all of my folders mysteriously changed to thumbnail view, including system folders. Thanks Windows, just what I wanted!

They just seem to have done such a poor job of folder views in general in Explorer.

Vertigo · 29 Mar 2008 at 22:38

Thanks all, particularly Shadowness for that superb link

badbob · 29 Mar 2008 at 22:45

NathanE said:
Nope I know of loads of XP installs where it happens. Even Server 2003 does it. If you have a folder of WAV files it will just automagically at some random point in time decide to turn it into a music folder so it removes all the useful timestamp columns and replaces them with crap like "bit rate" "artist" "album" and all this other crap nobody wants.

I use Windows Classic and Open Each Folder In The Same Window.

Kainz · 30 Mar 2008 at 00:54

badbob said:
No, once you set "Apply to all windows" never goes back.

Nope. On both OS's even if you do that it still occasionally reverts. It's one of my pet hates. On Vista my Game Explorer and Uninstaller windows lose their views every now and again. The latter decides to go from detailed view to Large uber icon view, which sends me in a rage.

HangTime · 30 Mar 2008 at 10:02

Don't remember ever seeing it in XP, at least if it did happen, certainly not anywhere near as frequently as in Vista (can't have happened more than a couple of times in 6.5 years, otherwise I'd have remembered - compared to Vista where it happens every week).

Maybe it's not a problem with XP Windows Classic theme as per the above suggestion?