Explorer: Default View? (Home Edition)

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People,

In Windows Explorer [whether using the main program . . . or Start Menu Explorer options (e.g., My Documents, My Computer, etc.)], my “Views” always defaults back to “Icons”, despite changing to my preferred View repeatedly.

Any way to configure Explorer to display the previously set View?

Thanks in advance,

mark4man

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When you’ve set up your view in Windows Explorer, choose Tools|Folder Options. Turn to the View tab and choose Apply to All Folders.

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unkamunka,

That’s just the thing . . . I need to customize.

I found I got uniformity by using your method to set up the basic Explorer view; & then customizing select Folders where applicable (for example . . . setting “Filmstrip” as the view for Folders containing photos.) Once I set Explorer view to “List”, individual Folders I customized after that seem to retain the setting.

Thanks,

mark4man

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There’s a separate problem you might have later; Windows is set up only to remember so many of these folders. Peruse here or General Windows Solutions (I can’t recall) for a couple of recent threads with registry hacks for this if it’s an issue.

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There’s a separate problem you might have later; Windows is set up only to remember so many of these folders. Peruse here or General Windows Solutions (I can’t recall) for a couple of recent threads with registry hacks for this if it’s an issue.

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I believe this thread in the XP Forum is the one Jefferson is thinking of…

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Thanks, everyone.

mark4man

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I am posting this here because this is the most recently posted thread on this topic, even though there are several references to earlier posts and threads in this thread and I used all the info to come up with what I think is a good solution to this problem plus some info from the Microsoft Knowledge Base/Community Newsgroups/Windows/Customizing Your Computer. I apologize in advance for the length of this post, but I felt lost with many of the short and sweet posts in the various threads and want to be as clear as I can in trying to explain this fix.
First I’m going to give a quick synopsis of what the problem was on my machine (Dell Dimension8250, purchased in Feb.2003, Windows XP Home SP-1). I don’t remember what my Explorer settings were out of the box, so I’ll start at a good beginning point. I started by going to Folder Options/View and chose the “Reset All Folders” button. This set virtually all folders to “Tile” view, except Control Panel (Icons), Scheduled Tasks(Details) and my Picture folders (My Pictures and several subfolders and new folders that I created) were set to either Thumbnails or Filmstrip(who knows how it decided which one would be which). The Status Bar was also not opened by default after this selection. The special folders were what I wanted but I did not want Tile for all my file and data file folders. So I then opened a data file and set it to what I wanted(I chose List view), selected to have the Status Bar opened and then went to Folder Options/View and selected the “Apply To All Folders” button. This changed all folders to list view, including the aforementioned special folders plus My Computer and Printers and Faxes and the Staus Bar was opened by default. At this point I naively thought that it would be a simple matter to individually customize the few folders that I wanted to be different than the List view and that they would be saved since I had the the “Remember each folder’s view settings” check box checked (Again in Folder Options/View). From here I encountered what it seems a lot of others ran into; the changes were not saved and all folders reverted back to List view each time I opened them. Many people (thank you all) had tweaks to help fix this, but none worked for me as stated or by themselves. The following seems to be working.
First, I upped the amount of folder customizations saved from 400 to 8000. That number appeared in several posts so I used it. This can be accomplished in several ways: X-Setup has 2 places where this can be changed; TweakUI has one but one post says its wrong(It adds a slightly different registry value that apparently doesn’t work, so one poster said. I checked and it is slightly off but I don’t know if it works or not); you can download a .reg file that sets the value at 8000 from here:

http://www.kellys-korner-xp.com/xp_tweaks.htm, Line 2;

or go to the registry yourself and manually change the value of the keys at:

HKEY_CURRENT_USERSoftwareMicrosoftWindowsShell and then BagMRU Size (right click and then Modify, select decimal button and type in 8000, click OK)and
HKEY_CURRENT_USERSoftwareMicrosoftWindowsShellNoRoam and then BagMRU Size again.

This next step may be hard for some but turned out to be the key. While still in the registry editor and at these same two keys, first export and save somewhere these subkeys:

HKEY_CURRENT_USERSoftwareMicrosoftWindowsShellBagMRU
HKEY_CURRENT_USERSoftwareMicrosoftWindowsShellBags
HKEY_CURRENT_USERSoftwareMicrosoftWindowsShellNoRoamBagMRU
HKEY_CURRENT_USERSoftwareMicrosoftWindowsShellNoRoamBags

Now delete all 4 of these keys. These apparently are where all the customization information is saved and are rebuilt when you restart Windows. Once these are gone, close the registry editor and open Explorer. Choose a good representative folder and customize it like you want most of your folders to be; choose the view and adjust columns, etc. to your liking. Open the Status Bar if you like. Now go to Folder Options/View and choose “Apply to All Folders”. All folders will now be like the one you changed. Now you’re ready to customize select special folders. Here is where what I discovered differs from many of the posts. Make sure “Remember each folder’s view settings” is CHECKED. (Many said to leave it unchecked but I found that as I customized special folders, they didn’t stay as changed when I went to other folders to customize them and then went back; they took on the view of the last folder I changed. With it checked, I could move from folder to folder and customize them and they stuck)Change your My Computer folder to Tile or Icon, if you so choose, and Control Panel to Icons if you like that. Customize your picture folders to Thumbnails or Filmstrip(right click an open area in the open folder and choose customize this folder and make sure the folder template is set for photos;either pictures (default view is Thumbnails) or photo album (default is Filmstrip))if you prefer these. And customize any others that you have special preferences for. Navigate around to various folders to see that they are still the same as you desire. Close Explorer and then do what you gotta to restart Windows. When I reopened Explorer after the reboot, that’s when I felt joy! Everything was as I had set it. The only thing that’s a bummer about all of this is that it shouldn’t have to be done this way and I hope I don’t have to make any more changes in the future, which is a long shot. Apparently there is a bug that prevents the changes from being written to the registry keys and what is stored is what is used time after time, regardless of what you tell it to do. The key is to remove those keys, make your changes and reboot to save the values in the registry.
I am not a computer tech guy, rather a general contractor who likes to use his computer and I get a kick out of trying to solve my problems with the help of all the techies out there. If any of you find error or misstatement in what I have posted here, please chime in. All I know is that this is what worked for me and the other solutions as stated did not. For those interested in this, please read all the threads that I used to come up with my solution, especially the link in Leif’s post in this thread. Big Al has a great screen shot of the registry keys in that one. Thanks to all who helped and again, I apologize for the length of this post.

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Welcome to The Lounge, Richard! It was nice of you to share all that with everyone, but….. Up above in the thread, Leif pointed to a previous thread where this problem had already been documented. Hope you enjoy the info in the Lounge.

P.S. I lived in Boulder for five years and still miss the beautiful Rockies!

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Welcome to The Lounge, Richard! It was nice of you to share all that with everyone, but….. Up above in the thread, Leif pointed to a previous thread where this problem had already been documented. Hope you enjoy the info in the Lounge.

P.S. I lived in Boulder for five years and still miss the beautiful Rockies!

Reply | Quote

I am posting this here because this is the most recently posted thread on this topic, even though there are several references to earlier posts and threads in this thread and I used all the info to come up with what I think is a good solution to this problem plus some info from the Microsoft Knowledge Base/Community Newsgroups/Windows/Customizing Your Computer. I apologize in advance for the length of this post, but I felt lost with many of the short and sweet posts in the various threads and want to be as clear as I can in trying to explain this fix.
First I’m going to give a quick synopsis of what the problem was on my machine (Dell Dimension8250, purchased in Feb.2003, Windows XP Home SP-1). I don’t remember what my Explorer settings were out of the box, so I’ll start at a good beginning point. I started by going to Folder Options/View and chose the “Reset All Folders” button. This set virtually all folders to “Tile” view, except Control Panel (Icons), Scheduled Tasks(Details) and my Picture folders (My Pictures and several subfolders and new folders that I created) were set to either Thumbnails or Filmstrip(who knows how it decided which one would be which). The Status Bar was also not opened by default after this selection. The special folders were what I wanted but I did not want Tile for all my file and data file folders. So I then opened a data file and set it to what I wanted(I chose List view), selected to have the Status Bar opened and then went to Folder Options/View and selected the “Apply To All Folders” button. This changed all folders to list view, including the aforementioned special folders plus My Computer and Printers and Faxes and the Staus Bar was opened by default. At this point I naively thought that it would be a simple matter to individually customize the few folders that I wanted to be different than the List view and that they would be saved since I had the the “Remember each folder’s view settings” check box checked (Again in Folder Options/View). From here I encountered what it seems a lot of others ran into; the changes were not saved and all folders reverted back to List view each time I opened them. Many people (thank you all) had tweaks to help fix this, but none worked for me as stated or by themselves. The following seems to be working.
First, I upped the amount of folder customizations saved from 400 to 8000. That number appeared in several posts so I used it. This can be accomplished in several ways: X-Setup has 2 places where this can be changed; TweakUI has one but one post says its wrong(It adds a slightly different registry value that apparently doesn’t work, so one poster said. I checked and it is slightly off but I don’t know if it works or not); you can download a .reg file that sets the value at 8000 from here:

http://www.kellys-korner-xp.com/xp_tweaks.htm, Line 2;

or go to the registry yourself and manually change the value of the keys at:

HKEY_CURRENT_USERSoftwareMicrosoftWindowsShell and then BagMRU Size (right click and then Modify, select decimal button and type in 8000, click OK)and
HKEY_CURRENT_USERSoftwareMicrosoftWindowsShellNoRoam and then BagMRU Size again.

This next step may be hard for some but turned out to be the key. While still in the registry editor and at these same two keys, first export and save somewhere these subkeys:

HKEY_CURRENT_USERSoftwareMicrosoftWindowsShellBagMRU
HKEY_CURRENT_USERSoftwareMicrosoftWindowsShellBags
HKEY_CURRENT_USERSoftwareMicrosoftWindowsShellNoRoamBagMRU
HKEY_CURRENT_USERSoftwareMicrosoftWindowsShellNoRoamBags

Now delete all 4 of these keys. These apparently are where all the customization information is saved and are rebuilt when you restart Windows. Once these are gone, close the registry editor and open Explorer. Choose a good representative folder and customize it like you want most of your folders to be; choose the view and adjust columns, etc. to your liking. Open the Status Bar if you like. Now go to Folder Options/View and choose “Apply to All Folders”. All folders will now be like the one you changed. Now you’re ready to customize select special folders. Here is where what I discovered differs from many of the posts. Make sure “Remember each folder’s view settings” is CHECKED. (Many said to leave it unchecked but I found that as I customized special folders, they didn’t stay as changed when I went to other folders to customize them and then went back; they took on the view of the last folder I changed. With it checked, I could move from folder to folder and customize them and they stuck)Change your My Computer folder to Tile or Icon, if you so choose, and Control Panel to Icons if you like that. Customize your picture folders to Thumbnails or Filmstrip(right click an open area in the open folder and choose customize this folder and make sure the folder template is set for photos;either pictures (default view is Thumbnails) or photo album (default is Filmstrip))if you prefer these. And customize any others that you have special preferences for. Navigate around to various folders to see that they are still the same as you desire. Close Explorer and then do what you gotta to restart Windows. When I reopened Explorer after the reboot, that’s when I felt joy! Everything was as I had set it. The only thing that’s a bummer about all of this is that it shouldn’t have to be done this way and I hope I don’t have to make any more changes in the future, which is a long shot. Apparently there is a bug that prevents the changes from being written to the registry keys and what is stored is what is used time after time, regardless of what you tell it to do. The key is to remove those keys, make your changes and reboot to save the values in the registry.
I am not a computer tech guy, rather a general contractor who likes to use his computer and I get a kick out of trying to solve my problems with the help of all the techies out there. If any of you find error or misstatement in what I have posted here, please chime in. All I know is that this is what worked for me and the other solutions as stated did not. For those interested in this, please read all the threads that I used to come up with my solution, especially the link in Leif’s post in this thread. Big Al has a great screen shot of the registry keys in that one. Thanks to all who helped and again, I apologize for the length of this post.

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Thanks, everyone.

mark4man

Reply | Quote

I believe this thread in the XP Forum is the one Jefferson is thinking of…

Reply | Quote

unkamunka,

That’s just the thing . . . I need to customize.

I found I got uniformity by using your method to set up the basic Explorer view; & then customizing select Folders where applicable (for example . . . setting “Filmstrip” as the view for Folders containing photos.) Once I set Explorer view to “List”, individual Folders I customized after that seem to retain the setting.

Thanks,

mark4man

Reply | Quote

When you’ve set up your view in Windows Explorer, choose Tools|Folder Options. Turn to the View tab and choose Apply to All Folders.

Reply | Quote