Asher, I demand an explanation

[Kuciwalker]

Why the **** is explorer so bad at remembering my ****ing folder view settings? Why does it CONSTANTLY reset them? Why should changing one folder's view setting alter another's, even if I have it set to remember settings individually and have previously set a completely DIFFERENT folder as the default template? Why can't I ****ing define my own folder styles, instead of being forced into 1 of 5 predefined categories?

Everything will be working fine for weeks and then suddenly break, returning to the original (absurd) settings. Then when I try to set it back, it constantly flipflops, until somehow something sticks and it works for another few weeks again.

[Asher]

XP?

[Kuciwalker]

Vista.

[Kuciwalker]

Also, why does it deny access to the "customize" tab for my user folder, for Program Files, for C:\, for Computer, for basically any special folder...

[Asher]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker
Also, why does it deny access to the "customize" tab for my user folder, for Program Files, for C:\, for Computer, for basically any special folder...

I presume because they are special.

IIRC it can only store 400 custom folders by default. If you do more than that (which is easy to do if you recursively define folder types), then just raise the count in the registry.

Note: This will toast all your current folder settings.

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Shell

Delete BagMRU and Bags if they exist.

If "BagMRU Size" exists, modify it in decimal to a sufficiently large number.
If it doesn't exist, create it as a DWORD.

Also do this in HKEY_ CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\ Windows\ShellNoRoam if applicable.

[Kuciwalker]

IIRC it can only store 400 custom folders by default. If you do more than that (which is easy to do if you recursively define folder types)

That would be it, thanks. Now, if only explorer let me write a short function to determine folder settings (by examining contents and path, and with a bunch of special cases for specific folders), that would be optimal...

edit: and BagMRU Size is 5000 on mine already. Interesting. Should there be any noticeable performance penalty if I increase that to 100,000 or so?

[Asher]

Try it and see.

I'm actually not sure if this works at all in Vista. It's an old XP trick.

[Aeson]

Powertoys TweakUI for XP would do that IIRC, as well as a few other useful things.

[Kuciwalker]

It took a bit more than that, but I think I may have finally beat Windows into submission

[Adagio]

I have almost the same problem, except I don't use custom settings, I just want all my folders to use list-view. I have tried 100+ times to go to folder options \ View, then press the "Apply to folders", but that doesn't really do much. Whenever I go into a folder I haven't been in before it back to the default "Super extra extreme large icons"-view
I want ALL folders to use list-view, no matter if it contains pictures, videos, documents or just random files
Often it also resets for folder I have had opened before. I have lost count on how many times my video folder has been reset to "Super extra extreme large icons"-view (or whatever the default view for videos are)

[Apocalypse]

Sounds like someone needs Firefox.

[Adagio]

What does Firefox has to do with this?

Last time I checked, Firefox was just a web browser

[Thue]

nm