File Explorer has become a real mess

ARYLIOA · 05 Dec 2015

File Explorer, in the last few days, has become a real mess on my computers. (My Documents resides on a network drive, a D-Link DNS-323, which is mapped to the computer, and has been ever since the July release.)

1. Sometimes it takes File Explorer 4 or 5 minutes to allow access to My Documents.
a. I can expand My Documents in the left panel.
b. None of the sub-folders will expand in the left panel, the arrows to expand them are not present.
c. Clicking on one of the sub-folders does not expand it in the right panel.

i.e. nothing works beyond expanding My Documents in the left panel until W10 gets its act in gear and decides to let me.

2. I can click on the mapped network drive which contains My Documents.
a. My Documents will expand in the left panel.
b. All sub-folders will expand in the left panel.
c. Clicking on one of the sub-folders will expand it in the right panel.

i.e. at the mapped drive level, everything works fine. Conclusion: Do that. Problem: I shouldn't have to.

3. And then, there is frequently this.

File Explorer has become a real mess-file-explorer-mess.jpg

a. How many inaccessible copies of My Documents do I need? (Note, there are three this time, but it varies. I have seen as many as 5)
b. The sub-folder which is actually expanded on the right does not appear in the list on the left. (It belongs between # Correspondence and # Finance, of course.)

4. And this:

File Explorer has become a real mess-flash-drive.jpg

Attachment 52135
My flash drive on drive F: shows up twice. Once as a device under Computer, once kind of in a world of its own at the same level as my network.

Have I done any of this, or has MS done it to me?

caperjack · 05 Dec 2015

hello, not sure exactly how mapped drivers would look in file explorer ,but I would say for part of the issue ,start with unchecking some of the things that show up in the left pane ,see image of my basic explorer , go to view #1 and uncheck the 3 things in #2

AndreyT · 05 Dec 2015

ARYLIOA said:

My flash drive on drive F: shows up twice. Once as a device under Computer, once kind of in a world of its own at the same level as my network.

This is actually by design. We all have it like that.

All removable drives show twice in the left panel of File Explorer. They look like they are "in a world of their own", but in reality that "world" is actually a tree rooted under Desktop node. By default that Desktop node is hidden and you don't see it. But if you right-click some empty area in the left pane and select Show all folders option, you will see it.

The idea is to make removable drives accessible immediately under Desktop node (without having you expand This PC node). But they also appear under This PC.

jfreemont · 05 Dec 2015

Yeah, the removable-drive behavior is absolute garbage. I despise that they show up twice. I hate it so much.

Oh, and there are two totally unnecessary libraries that can't be permanently deleted: Camera Roll and Saved Pictures. Totally worthless and confusing.

They've screwed up File Explorer, honestly. It needs to be cleaned up and simplified.

fdegrove · 05 Dec 2015

Hi,

All removable drives show twice in the left panel of File Explorer.

Nonsense. (Sorry.....:))

Whilst I have this kind of behavior on some machines, I don't have it on every machine.
For example: plugging in a USB drive whilst booted from a Win To Go drive on the machine having this kind of behavior itself shows only one drive letter in explorer.
Doing the same booted from an internal disk it would show up twice with the second icon slightly more to the left.
It does not do this when an external HD is connect to the USB ports though.

Of course the fun starts when you have multiple devices hooked up to several USB ports. What a mess indeed........

Can't comment on shares network drives as I currently operate on stand alones.

Cheers,

ARYLIOA · 06 Dec 2015

caperjack said:

hello, not sure exactly how mapped drivers would look in file explorer ,but I would say for part of the issue ,start with unchecking some of the things that show up in the left pane ,see image of my basic explorer , go to view #1 and uncheck the 3 things in #2

Thanks for the reply.

But..... Those navigation pane settings have been set like yours since day-1. The current ill-behavior started recently, perhaps with version 1511, perhaps with a later update. I kind of "lived with it" for a while before it really started bugging me.

ARYLIOA · 06 Dec 2015

AndreyT said:

This is actually by design. We all have it like that.
........

The idea is to make removable drives accessible immediately under Desktop node (without having you expand This PC node). But they also appear under This PC.

Thanks. I guess the Department of Redundancy Department decided to do it that. I don't use that particular computer very often, since it is primarily my wife's unit. But I don't remember that being the case initially when I was doing all the setup and hammering my way through W10. It is possible I just did not notice it until the rest of File Explorer got under my skin.

ARYLIOA · 06 Dec 2015

fdegrove said:

...............

Whilst I have this kind of behavior on some machines, I don't have it on every machine.

...............

Thanks. I'm not even sure it was this way on that machine until recently, but I may be mistaken. Lots of strange stuff seems to be happening from day-to-day with W10. It gets so I don't know if I screwed up, or if MS is messing with what few brain cells I still have that work.

ARYLIOA · 06 Dec 2015

OK, no takers on the time to connect, the three copies of My Documents, or the missing folder yet. No prize for being the first to answer, but ....... Have we all just decided stuff like that is to be taken for granted until W10 is a finished product.

I know Vista took a beating from guys like me when it first hit the market, but it eventually became a pretty decent OS. They just had to replace it with W7 shortly after that. I never did bite on W8, so I can't comment on it. But I noticed W8.1 followed pretty fast on its heels. Do you suppose W10.1 in the works? In effect, I guess v1511 was the first shot at that.

ARYLIOA · 06 Dec 2015

jfreemont said:

Yeah, the removable-drive behavior is absolute garbage. I despise that they show up twice. I hate it so much.

Oh, and there are two totally unnecessary libraries that can't be permanently deleted: Camera Roll and Saved Pictures. Totally worthless and confusing.

They've screwed up File Explorer, honestly. It needs to be cleaned up and simplified.

So far, the best feature is the message when deleting files. For large files (10 or 20 gB, for instance) I always wondered what was going on for a minute or two as they purged them. Now they at least keep you posted with a pop-up message right away and follow it with the progress bar.

They also seem to refresh the right pane when a change is made, which I always had to do manually in W7 for some reason. But changes which affect the left pane still require you to close File Explorer and reopen it.

You win some, you lose some, I guess. But currently I feel I have lost more than I won.