Windows Explorer: How to force ALL folders to use "All Items" template rather than "Pictures & Video

[Tom]

I'm not asking for much. I just want ALL folders to file size and dates.

Frequently, the Windows Explorer decides (for unknown reasons) that a folder
contains Pictures and in the View, "Customize this folder" window, sets it
to "Pictures and Videos" rather than "All Items"

There IS a "Apply this template to all sub-folders," this option is not
available on C:\, even when logged in as administrator.

It's tough (and I'm failing) not to get angry with Microsoft. Their
intentions were no doubt good (e.g. "Let's make folder browsing less
intimidating for the average user -- we'll just hide the details of a folder
if we think they aren't neceesary.") However, in implementation, they've
penalized technical users like me who live in the Windows Explorer.

Tom

 

[Adam Albright]

I'm not asking for much. I just want ALL folders to file size and dates.

Frequently, the Windows Explorer decides (for unknown reasons) that a folder
contains Pictures and in the View, "Customize this folder" window, sets it
to "Pictures and Videos" rather than "All Items"

There IS a "Apply this template to all sub-folders," this option is not
available on C:\, even when logged in as administrator.

It's tough (and I'm failing) not to get angry with Microsoft. Their
intentions were no doubt good (e.g. "Let's make folder browsing less
intimidating for the average user -- we'll just hide the details of a folder
if we think they aren't neceesary.") However, in implementation, they've
penalized technical users like me who live in the Windows Explorer.

Tom

Well if you're a more technical user and not afraid to mess with
things you could partition your root drive roping off system files in
"C" and create another partition for other files you store on that
physical drive under a different drive letter, then you can use the
apply to sub folders method. What I do... I have a 300 GB drive I
divided into two partitions. One is 50 GB reserved for Windows, the
other "E" is for whatever I want and uses the remaning 250 GB left
over on this physical drive. ;-)

 

[Tom]

Well if you're a more technical user and not afraid to mess with
things you could partition your root drive roping off system files in
"C" and create another partition for other files you store on that
physical drive under a different drive letter, then you can use the
apply to sub folders method. What I do... I have a 300 GB drive I
divided into two partitions. One is 50 GB reserved for Windows, the
other "E" is for whatever I want and uses the remaning 250 GB left
over on this physical drive. ;-)

That's doable, but I think the cure is worse than the disease!

 

[Keith Miller MVP]

Copy the text between the lines below into notepad & save as a .reg file.
Watch out for line wrap -- [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\...\Shell] is all one line.

--------------------------------------------------
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Classes\Local
Settings\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Shell\Bags\AllFolders\Shell]
"FolderType"="NotSpecified"

--------------------------------------------------

Merging the .reg file will set the 'All Items' template for any folders that
don't currently have a view saved with a different template. You can clear
all saved views by deleting the

"HKCU\Software\Classes\Local Settings\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Shell\Bags"

key BEFORE merging the .reg file. If any folders open with a different
template after clearing the 'Bags' key & merging the .reg file, they most
likely have a template specified via their desktop.ini file.

 

[DevilsPGD]

In message <eX3#[email protected]> "Keith Miller MVP"

Copy the text between the lines below into notepad & save as a .reg file.
Watch out for line wrap -- [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\...\Shell] is all one line.

--------------------------------------------------
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Classes\Local
Settings\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Shell\Bags\AllFolders\Shell]
"FolderType"="NotSpecified"

--------------------------------------------------

Merging the .reg file will set the 'All Items' template for any folders that
don't currently have a view saved with a different template. You can clear
all saved views by deleting the

"HKCU\Software\Classes\Local Settings\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Shell\Bags"

key BEFORE merging the .reg file. If any folders open with a different
template after clearing the 'Bags' key & merging the .reg file, they most
likely have a template specified via their desktop.ini file.

Interesting -- Any nasty downsides?

 

[Keith Miller MVP]

Not that I know of. You'll need to set Contacts template back to Contacts
to access 'New Contact' button, etc.

Under XP, it was more annoying to use this because if you wanted a folder to
be Music, you could switch the template to Music, but you still had the
general columns. Vista will switch the columns when you switch the
templates.


--
Good Luck,

Keith
Microsoft MVP [Windows XP Shell/User]

In message <eX3#[email protected]> "Keith Miller MVP"

Copy the text between the lines below into notepad & save as a .reg file.
Watch out for line wrap -- [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\...\Shell] is all one line.

--------------------------------------------------
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Classes\Local
Settings\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Shell\Bags\AllFolders\Shell]
"FolderType"="NotSpecified"

--------------------------------------------------

Merging the .reg file will set the 'All Items' template for any folders
that
don't currently have a view saved with a different template. You can
clear
all saved views by deleting the

"HKCU\Software\Classes\Local
Settings\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Shell\Bags"

key BEFORE merging the .reg file. If any folders open with a different
template after clearing the 'Bags' key & merging the .reg file, they most
likely have a template specified via their desktop.ini file.

Interesting -- Any nasty downsides?

 

[DevilsPGD]

In message <eX3#[email protected]> "Keith Miller MVP"

Copy the text between the lines below into notepad & save as a .reg file.
Watch out for line wrap -- [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\...\Shell] is all one line.

--------------------------------------------------
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Classes\Local
Settings\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Shell\Bags\AllFolders\Shell]
"FolderType"="NotSpecified"

--------------------------------------------------

Merging the .reg file will set the 'All Items' template for any folders that
don't currently have a view saved with a different template. You can clear
all saved views by deleting the

"HKCU\Software\Classes\Local Settings\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Shell\Bags"

key BEFORE merging the .reg file. If any folders open with a different
template after clearing the 'Bags' key & merging the .reg file, they most
likely have a template specified via their desktop.ini file.

Praise Jebus! It worked. Thanks!

One more possibly similar one -- How about the "Views" setting for the
common file dialogs? Any way to force that one to stay in "Details" all
the time?

 

[Keith Miller MVP]

In message <eX3#[email protected]> "Keith Miller MVP"

Copy the text between the lines below into notepad & save as a .reg file.
Watch out for line wrap -- [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\...\Shell] is all one line.

--------------------------------------------------
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Classes\Local
Settings\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Shell\Bags\AllFolders\Shell]
"FolderType"="NotSpecified"

Praise Jebus! It worked. Thanks!

One more possibly similar one -- How about the "Views" setting for the
common file dialogs? Any way to force that one to stay in "Details" all
the time?

You're welcome. Glad you like it.

Thank you for asking a question that led me to find something new (I found the AllFolders trick under XP, very happy it was left in Vista). With Vista's new ability to save Common Dialog views, MS did add the same AllFolders capability for ComDlg as well. Here's the .reg file to set Details default for Common Dialogs:

--------------------------------------------
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Classes\Local Settings\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Shell\Bags\AllFolders\ComDlg]
"Mode"=dword:00000004
"LogicalViewMode"=dword:00000001

--------------------------------------------

Other valid values are:

Style Mode LogicalViewMode IconSize
X-Lg Icons 5 3 0x100
Lg Icons 5 3 0x60
Med Icons 5 3 0x30
Sm Icons 2 3 0x10
List 3 3 0x10
Details 4 1 0x10
Tiles 6 2 0x30



Pardon my HTML, but a table is really handy for this sort of info

 

[DevilsPGD]

In message <[email protected]> "Keith Miller MVP"

Thank you for asking a question that led me to find something new (I found the AllFolders trick under XP, very happy it was left in Vista). With Vista's new ability to save Common Dialog views, MS did add the same AllFolders capability for ComDlg as well. Here's the .reg file to set Details default for Common Dialogs:

--------------------------------------------
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Classes\Local Settings\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Shell\Bags\AllFolders\ComDlg]
"Mode"=dword:00000004
"LogicalViewMode"=dword:00000001

--------------------------------------------

Other valid values are:

Style Mode LogicalViewMode IconSize
X-Lg Icons 5 3 0x100
Lg Icons 5 3 0x60
Med Icons 5 3 0x30
Sm Icons 2 3 0x10
List 3 3 0x10
Details 4 1 0x10
Tiles 6 2 0x30

Interesting, thanks. Any points on where you found that (I'd love to go
digging and see if I find anything else useful or fun)

 

[Keith Miller MVP]

In message <[email protected]> "Keith Miller MVP"

Thank you for asking a question that led me to find something new (I found
the AllFolders trick under XP, very happy it was left in Vista). With
Vista's new ability to save Common Dialog views, MS did add the same
AllFolders capability for ComDlg as well. Here's the .reg file to set
Details default for Common Dialogs:

--------------------------------------------
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Classes\Local
Settings\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Shell\Bags\AllFolders\ComDlg]
"Mode"=dword:00000004
"LogicalViewMode"=dword:00000001

--------------------------------------------

Other valid values are:

Style Mode LogicalViewMode IconSize
X-Lg Icons 5 3 0x100
Lg Icons 5 3 0x60
Med Icons 5 3 0x30
Sm Icons 2 3 0x10
List 3 3 0x10
Details 4 1 0x10
Tiles 6 2 0x30

Interesting, thanks. Any points on where you found that (I'd love to go
digging and see if I find anything else useful or fun)

I found the AllFolders key back in XP when I was using RegMon:

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/sysinternals/utilities/regmon.mspx

to figure out saved views. If you filter on part of a key name, the data
ceases to be overwhelming. My v7.03 from XP works under Vista -- though the
link above recommends Vista users use Process Explorer:

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/sysinternals/utilities/processexplorer.mspx

but I haven't checked that out yet.

If you get playing with Regmon, pay attention to subkeys/values that
Explorer or whatever program you are interested in is looking for but return
'NOT FOUND' as a result. That's the best clue to the full range of values
that are available.

 

[Keith Miller MVP]

You can save and/or set registry settings with a .reg file -- an ordinary
text file with a .reg extension. When you right-click a file with a .reg
extension, the default action is 'Merge' which adds that information to the
registry. The registry info I gave earlier in this thread:

Copy the text between the lines below into notepad & save as a .reg file.
Watch out for line wrap -- [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\...\Shell] is all one line.

--------------------------------------------------
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Classes\Local
Settings\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Shell\Bags\AllFolders\Shell]
"FolderType"="NotSpecified"

--------------------------------------------------

will override the 'content-sniffing' behavior of Explorer -- when Explorer
applies the 'Pictures' or 'Music' template to a folder based on its
contents.

By default, the 'All Items' template has an icon mode of 'Details' with
selected columns being 'Name', 'Date Modified', 'Type', and 'Size'. These
defaults can be modified by setting the view of any file folder that is
using the 'All Items' template and then selecting:

'Organize' -> 'Folder and Search Options' -> 'View' tab -> 'Apply to
Folders'

The two steps above will set the view for the majority of your folders. I
say majority because it only affects file system folders, not namespace
folders. Namespace folders are: 'Desktop', 'Computer', 'Control Panel',
<UserProfile> on the Desktop, etc. But if views are being remembered
properly, you should only have to set those once.