Vista's file explorer, switches between details/thumbnails/everything

Trann · 4 May 2007 at 17:56

Been using Vista Buisness for 2 months or so now (legit copy for once

, and aside from it being pretty slow when multitasking on my laptop there is one thing that is just quite literally DRIVING ME CRAZY.

First thing i do after installing Windows XP is going to my computer, setting it to details view, adjusting the size of the colums, going to folder options, unchecking remember seperate view settings for folder and clicking "make all folder appear like this one", or something in that direct, so that i would ALWAYS get details view no matter what.
Worked perfectly.

Not quite so with Vista.
I'm literally battling the operating system here and i've quite a few times almost resorted to writing my own file explorer (but realized it would probably be even more annoying and wouldn't cover file open/close windows either) .

There seems to be no way to lock the file explorer to one type of view.

The properties -> customize -> all items
solution doesn't work either. It's a short term and very limited solution. The settings both just simply disappear and new folders are not affected, which makes it even more annoying to be constantly switching between and fourth.

I've tried everything i could think of, i've search google and usenet for solutions but come up with nothing, so this is my last resort..
Does anyone have a solution to this mess?

Trann · 5 May 2007 at 20:06

no one with answers? Or no one with the same issue as me?

jaric · 6 May 2007 at 00:18

I've noticed this in Vista too. It's damn annoying.

One thing I have noticed though is in XP it said "apply these setting to all folders" but in Vista it's now "apply these setting to all folders of this type", which means having to apply the settings several times for each type of folder -e.g. documents, pictures, music etc.

There no longer seems to be an option to apply to ALL folders. :confused:

Trann · 6 May 2007 at 01:12

jaric said:
I've noticed this in Vista too. It's damn annoying.

One thing I have noticed though is in XP it said "apply these setting to all folders" but in Vista it's now "apply these setting to all folders of this type", which means having to apply the settings several times for each type of folder -e.g. documents, pictures, music etc.

There no longer seems to be an option to apply to ALL folders.

And applying "that setting to all folders of that type" doesn't even do what it says

I have done it for all the type of folders there are, and i still get folders popping up in thumbnails view and with the rating colums and all that ********..

Very annoying..

marc2003 · 6 May 2007 at 09:00

edit: didn't read first post properly.

eLbot · 6 May 2007 at 11:17

I’ve been having the same problem, your question prompted me to look for an answer and I found this post:

A few things to check for, but yes, there are problems...
- Organise > Folder and Search Options > View > make sure there is a
tick next to "Remember each folder's view settings"
- Vista has the concept of folder templates. You can see and change
which template is used from Organise > Properties > Customise
- If you go to Organise > Folder and Search Options > View and click
SAME TEMPLATE - not all folders everywhere. This (understandably) seems
to cause some confusion.
- For folders for which a template hasn't been selected, Explorer looks
at the content and tried to choose an appropriate template (Pictures,
Music etc.) This can be disabled by a registry edit suggested to me in
another thread (I've included the quote below)

Having done all that, I have still found that two particular folders
always have the same view. If I change one, the other has changed next
time I open it, even though I haven't selected the option to apply the
view to other folders with the same template. If you want to see more
detail of what has been suggested to me, look for my post "Folder views
randomly changing" on 14/04/07

Registry edit to disable content detection is below. If you delete the
entire "Bags" key to remove any currently saved views, most folders
including Pictures, Videos, Documents, etc. will be reset to "All
Items". If you want them to have their special views back, you'll need
to go into the customisation options and change the template back after
applying the edit.

Edit: DELETED as instructions are apparently wrong, check below post for correct ones

Source: http://www.eggheadcafe.com/software/aspnet/29855844/vista-keeps-forgetting-fo.aspx

Hope this helps, seem to have done the trick for me so far

V1N · 6 May 2007 at 11:22

eLbot said:
I’ve been having the same problem, your question prompted me to look for an answer and I found this post:

Source: http://www.eggheadcafe.com/software/aspnet/29855844/vista-keeps-forgetting-fo.aspx

Hope this helps, seem to have done the trick for me so far

Yeah, I was just gunna post about the deleting of the bags!

When I first installed Vista x64, this was annoying me for the first week or two... then I came across this advice, deleted the registry keys, and it fixed it... for about a week, then it started doing it again. I deleted the keys again, and it's never done it since.

Good luck, I know that was a severely irritating problem.

V1N.

EDIT: In fact, I've saved the instructions I followed in a txt file, so I can easily fix it if it happens again. I'll post it here....

--

http://www.kellys-korner-xp.com/xp_common_tasks.htm

Solution One, in the article, is probably your only recourse, which involves
deleting two registry keys. However, the registry keys that Keith Miller,
the author of the article, refers to are for Windows XP, and not Vista. The
locations for these keys have changed in Vista (as have many others, which
is why I cringed a little at Chad Harris's post, since there are really no
up-to-date sites, yet, that I know of, that deal with the changes in Vista's
registry, as they are only
accurate for XP). (By the way, Vista is set up to "remember" 5000 folders,
so no tweaking is
really necessary. Windows XP SP2, too, increased the Bag value to 5000,
from 400 in XP SP1).

Anyway, by deleting these two keys, you will start with a clean slate, and
all remembered folder settings in Windows Explorer for view state, window
position, sort order, column information, folder type, toolbar toggles, and
search result views will be lost, and reset to the correct defaults, just so
you know what to expect; but any corruption, which indeed does happen, will
also be
deleted.

The keys in Vista are:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Classes\Local
Settings\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Shell\BagMRU
(right-click on BagMRU and choose delete)

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Classes\Local
Settings\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Shell\Bags
(right-click on Bags and choose delete)

Log off and log back on to Windows to re-create the keys (done
automatically), and start anew.

I recently had to do this myself, on my computer, because the folder type
templates had gone haywire, making the Windows and System 32 folders
Music-type folders, which resulted in inappropriate Explorer Bar tasks (with
no way to change it, since they're special folders), all my New Folders
defaulted to Picture-type folders, and folder views kept getting scrambled
from views I had chosen: all these
being among other things that were driving me crazy. This fixed things
nicely, for me, and now special folders show the right tasks, and regular
folders use the All Items template, all with more logical default columns,
as well...

Hope this helps,