Force Explorer to Remember Its Own Settings in Vista
One of the most common annoyances with Windows Explorer is, well, annoying, because it should have been so simple for Microsoft to get it right.
How many times have you selected the Details view in Explorer, only to find that it has reverted to the Large Icons view the next time you open the folder?
For the most part, Windows Explorer apparent inability to remember its own settings is the result of a battle among three opposing forces: your saved settings, Vista's propensity to show thumbnail previews for media files, and some poor coding on Microsoft's part.
Your choices are stored in the Registry rather than in the folders themselves, which not only explains the limit on the number of folders Explorer can remember, but exposes a rather annoying flaw in the system. Say you choose the view settings for a folder called Lenny. When you close and reopen Lenny right away, your settings will remain. However, if you rename the Lenny folder to, say, Karl, it will instantly revert to Explorer’s defaults and forget the settings you made only seconds earlier.
First, open the Folder Options window, turn on the View tab, turn on the Remember each folder's view settings option, and click OK. Thereafter, Windows Explorer will temporarily save the settings for roughly 30 of the most recently viewed folders. Most of the time, these saved settings override your saved defaults. But how do you change the defaults?
If you're tired of constantly having to go back to Explorer's View dropdown to change the icon size, or having to click the column headers to sort file listings, you can set your own defaults. But Explorer’s use of your defaults won’t make much sense until you figure out Vista’s clandestine template system.
A template is a collection of folder display settings that includes the view (e.g., Large Icons, Details, etc.), the sorting method, and the columns displayed. Each time you open a folder, Vista automatically picks one of the five preset templates, and uses those settings to configure the view. And here in lies the source of the problem: Vista is no good at picking the default template. You might open a folder full of HTML web page documents, and Explorer will choose the template for music files. Or, a folder with nothing but photos will show up in the Details view, rather than thumbnails (Large Icons).
Unfortunately, there’s nothing you can do to change how Vista chooses its templates, nor can you remove or create your own templates. But you can customize the view settings for each template so that when Windows Explorer does get it right, you’ll get the view you need.
But you may soon realize that Windows gets it wrong too often, and customizing the templates just isn't enough. In this case, the solution is to duplicate your favorite view settings across every template, so no matter which template Windows picks, you’ll get the view you need:
1) Open Windows Explorer and navigate to any folder with files in it. (This won't work with drives, so make sure the folder isn't a root folder.)
2) Right-click the folder in the tree, select Properties, and choose the Customize tab. Or right-click an empty area of the folder background and select Customize This Folder.
3) From the Use this folder type as a template listbox, select the first entry, All Items, and then click OK.
4) Set your view settings, column headers, and sorting to your taste.
5) Open the Organize drop-down, select Folder and Search Options, and then choose the View tab.
6) Click the Apply to Folders button, answer Yes, and then click OK.
7) Repeat steps 3–6 for each of the other four templates: Documents, Pictures and Videos, Music Details, and Music Icons.
That's it; now you have five identical templates, and you no longer need to care whether or not Vista knows what kind of files are in each folder.
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