Description of the folder options settings in Vista
When you select Tools > Folder Option in an Explorer window. The View tab contains settings that affect how much information Explorer shows you, arranged in alphabetical order.
Unfortunately, the defaults are set in favor of a "simpler" (read dumbeddown) interface, which has the unfortunate and ironic side effect of making many everyday tasks like organizing files, sharing folders over a network, or even opening certain folders, more difficult. But probably the most annoying thing is that Vista provides no help whatsoever for these settings, so they’re explained in detail here.
Some of these options may not be available in all editions of Windows. Also, the use of some of these options can be very confusing, in that enabling them ends up turning something off in the interface, or vice-versa. But that’s the nature of the beast....
Always show icons, never thumbnails.
This is a setting Windows has been lacking for years. By default, Explorer automatically shows large thumbnails when a folder (or search results window) contains mostly image files. Turn on this option to disable thumbnails except when you specifically select Thumbnails from the Views drop-down.
Always show menus.
This self-explanatory option basically accomplishes the same thing as selecting Use Classic Folders on the General tab. Of course, you can display the menu bar at any time by pressing the Alt key.
Display file icon on thumbnails.
Turn this off for cleaner-looking thumbnails, or turn it on if you want to more easily distinguish a JPG image from a Photoshop document. Better yet, turn off the Hide extensions for known file types option, described later in this article.
Display file size information in folder tips.
Like many settings here, this option doesn't do exactly what it says. Turn it on, and the tool tip that appears when you hover your mouse over a folder icon will include information about the contents of the folder, including names of some
of its subfolders and the size of the files contained therein. Turn off the option, and all you’ll get is the date and time of the folder. To turn off folder tips altogether, use the Show pop-up description for folder and desktop items option, described later in this article.
Display simple folder view in Navigation pane.
The simple folder view refers to the way the folder tree looks, and is turned on by default. Turn it off to show dotted lines connecting folders, like the folder trees in some earlier versions of Windows.
Display the full path in the title bar (Classic folders only).
This setting does not affect the Windows Explorer title bar, nor does it have anything to do with "Classic" folders. Instead, it determines whether the full path or only the bare folder name appears in the taskbar button and in the task switcher (Alt-Tab window) for each open folder window.
Despite this setting, Explorer's title bar never contains any text at all, and the full path of the current folder is always shown in the Address box at the top of the window.
Hidden files and folders.
Vista does not show hidden files by default in Explorer. If you set this option to Show hidden files and folders, any files with the hidden or system file attribute will be shown in Explorer, but their icons will still appear semi-transparent.
To hide or unhide a file or folder, right-click it, select Properties, and change the Hidden option.
Hide extensions for known file types.
Some believe this feature to be one of Windows biggest annoyances. Filename extensions - the last few letters after the dot in a file's name - are hidden by default in Windows, and have been in every Windows release since Windows 95. Filename extensions (e.g., .txt, .jpg, .doc) determine how Windows interacts with your documents, and hiding this information only makes it harder to distinguish different files.
Hide protected operating system files.
When this option is turned on (the default), files with the system file attribute are hidden in Explorer, regardless of the Hidden files and folders option, discussed earlier. So called system files include most of the boot loader files, the $RECYCLE.BIN and System Volume Information folders found on every hard drive, the hiberfil.sys hibernation file, and a handful of other files. Leave this option turned on to protect these important files from accidental damage, or turn it off if you want to see and mess around with them.
Launch folder windows in a separate process.
By default, the desktop, Start menu, and all open Explorer and single-folder windows are handled by the same instance of Explorer. That is, only one copy of the Explorer.exe application is ever in memory. If you turn on this option, each Explorer window will use a new instance of the program. Although this takes slightly more memory and may slightly increase the time it takes to open new Explorer windows, it means that if one Explorer window crashes it won't bring them all down.
To see this option in action, open a few Explorer windows. Then, right-click an empty area of the taskbar, select Task Manager, choose the Processes tab, and click the Image Name column header to sort the list alphabetically. If you’ve elected to launch folder windows in a separate process, you’ll see multiple instances of Explorer.exe listed, one for each open window and one for the desktop. (Note that a problem that prevented Windows from reinstating a crashed desktop in previous versions of Windows has been more or less fixed in Vista.)
Remember each folder's view settings.
This option, when enabled, forces Explorer to remember the "view" settings for the 20–30 most recently opened folders, such as the sort order and icon size. This "memory" overrides the default view settings, but only for the folders you’ve recently customized. Unfortunately, this feature does cause problems from time to time. If you ever encounter a folder missing all its Details columns, for instance (only the Name column appears), then turn off this option temporarily to force Windows to forget the settings for the folder. Leave this option off if you want your folders to always be shown with your chosen default view settings. You can also Force Explorer to remember it's own settings.
Restore previous folder windows at logon.
Turn this option on if you want Windows to remember which folders are open when you shut down or log out, and then reopen them the next time you log in. Another way to do this is to not shut down at all, but rather use Vista’s Sleep feature.
Show drive letters.
Turn this off to hide drive letters (e.g., C:, D:, N:) from Explorer’s folder tree.
Show encrypted or compressed NTFS files in color.
Among the additional services provided by the NTFS filesystem are support for on-the-fly encryption and compression. Turn on this option to visually distinguish encrypted and compressed files and folders by displaying their names in blue.
Show pop-up description for folder and desktop items.
Commonly referred to as "tool tips", pop-up descriptions show additional details about the file or folder underneath the mouse pointer. Turn off this option to hide these tool tips. See also the Display file size information in folder tips option, earlier in this article, for a related setting.
Show preview handlers in preview pane.
When the Preview pane is visible (open the Organize drop-down and select Layout ➝ Preview Pane), Windows shows a thumbnail preview on the left unless this option is turned off.
Use check boxes to select items.
If you enable this option, you'll be able to select multiple files without having to drag a rubber band or use the keyboard.
Use Sharing Wizard.
Disable this option to use the Advanced Sharing window instead of the feeble Sharing Wizard each time you right-click a folder or drive and select Share. Despite the fact that Microsoft apparently recommends that you use this feature, only the Advanced Sharing window lets you specify sharing permissions to properly protect your data.
When typing into list view.
If you choose the "Automatically type into the search box" option, when you start typing inside an Explorer window, instead of looking up files by name, you will type directly into the search box on the top right.
Tags: explorer,memory,network,share,ntfs
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