Problem with "default" folder picture in My Documents

[actionpark]

I was recently organizing my mp3 collection in my "My Music" folder and
encountered a rather frustrating problem. In my "My Music" folder, I
have a seperate folder for each album, so there's about 500 or so
sub-folders (some of them with sub-folders themselves) in my "My Music"
folder. I was going through and customizing each folder so that when
Thumbnails is selected, each folder picture displays the cover art of
the album contained in the folder. I have done this countless times
with no problems. However, tonight, after assigning the folder picture
for one folder, it changed this to the default picture for EVERY SINGLE
FOLDER in the "My Documents" folder that did not already have a picture
assigned to it. I don't know what I did different, if anything. I
have tried everything I can think of short of going through and
assigning images to every folder (which would take forever, and this
applies to every folder in the "My Documents" folder, not just the "My
Music" folder but also "My Pictures" and other random folders I have in
the "My Documents" folder which I would have no image to assign.)

Any advice?

 

[Keith Miller MVP]

When you assign a thumbnail pic to a folder via the 'Customize' tab, that info is saved in the
registry along with the other view settings for the folder. If you also check the box labeled 'Also
apply this template to all subfolders', every subfolder that does not have a pic assigned will also
use that pic. It sounds like the system hiccupped and the subfolder option was applied to the My
Documents view.

To Repair:

Open regedit & navigate to:

"HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\ShellNoRoam\Bags"

Use 'File' - 'Export' to back up the key to a file in case something goes wrong.

'Edit' -> 'Find' -> type "inherit" without quotes and check the box to look for 'Keys', then click
'Find Next'

You should be taken to a key similar to:

"HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\ShellNoRoam\Bags\185\Shell\Inherit"

If the right-hand pane has an entry named 'Logo' and its data is the path to the pic you're seeing
on unassigned folders, you've most likely found the culprit -- delete the entire 'Inherit' key, as
it would most likely also impose "Music Tasks" on those folders it's affecting.

Just to be sure, continue searching until all of "HKCU\...\Bags" has been searched.

Now, even though you've deleted the picture assignment, if you have thumbnail caching enabled, the
image will remain visible for folders that have been viewed. To clear the caches, open a command
prompt window, navigate to the root of the drive containing your 'My Documents' folder & type the
following:

del /s /a:hs thumbs.db

Now open an explorer window & see if things have been repaired. If not, we'll try something else.


Suggestion: When you assign folder pics via the customize dialog, the assignment is valid only as
long as windows retains the view for that folder -- it could be overwritten to make room for other
views, or it could be deleted via the 'Reset all folders' button on the 'View' tab of the Folder
Options dialog. A more robust way to assign a thumbnail pic is to place the picture in the folder
(it sounds like this is already the case for you) and name it 'folder.jpg'. Explorer will then
automatically use that pic for the folder thumbnail -- and it will move with the folder, unlike the
customize method.