Command to open the "Folder and Search Options" window's second tab.

Some Background

I'm big on customizing my context menus, and I have edited the registry to include a context menu item that appears when you right click the background of a directory. The context menu is called Change Folder and Search Options. See this image:



What it does, is open the following window:



Here is what the entry looks like in RegEdit:



Here is code for the entry if anyone else wants to use it themselves:

Code:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Directory\Background\shell\Windows.folderoptions]
"CommandStateSync"=""
"ExplorerCommandHandler"="{83bb272f-7d5e-4b6e-9250-889893f0dac7}"
"Icon"="shell32.dll,-274"
"MUIVerb"="Folder Options"
"Description"="@shell32.dll,-31449"
"Position"="Bottom"

Question

Hopefully you're still with me. My question is if there is any way to customize this registry entry to open the Folder and Search Options window to the second tab (View). I want it to open, by default, this page:



Is this possible? I'm hoping someone with knowledge of Windows internals has a solution.

I'm also definitely open to solutions that use PowerShell, VBS, and/or Batch Files, because I can just call them from the registry instead of using the current registry entry.

I use this shortcut a lot to quickly switch folder views and having it open to the page I'm interested in would save time.

Any help greatly appreciated!

Brink said:

Hello,

You can use the command below to directly open the "View" tab. The Apply to Folders button will be grayed out though.

rundll32.exe shell32.dll,Options_RunDLL 7

Yeah I figured that out earlier, the whole purpose of adding this entry is to quickly get to the Apply to Folders button so I can easily flip between default folder views.

If you have any other options (no matter how complex) I am all ears. Really want to figure this out.

- - - Updated - - -

dalchina said:

You might be interested in this useful free tool if you've not come across it:
Easy Context menu v1.6

Great for adding custom entries.

I have indeed seen the Sordum tool, and it's great. Sordum is a fantastic organization that releases a lot of really useful tools. However I have my own tooling that I've built over the course of a year using PowerShell and C# that I use to manage my context menu needs. I'm also pretty happy with just using good ol' fashion RegEdit and another tool I found called RegistryFinder.

If you're interested I have the majority of my custom code on GitHub here:
visusys (Jay) . GitHub

These are the various context menu scripts I've built up over time:
GitHub - visusys/VSYSContextMenuWrappers: Short scripts that wrap and enhance existing functions as well as provide windows context menu support.

One of my favorites is my SVG to ICO conversion script. I can crunch through over 5000 SVGs (Converting each to windows .ICO format with 5 embedded sizes) in about 50 seconds. Powershell Runspace Pools are an amazing thing.

Anyway, sorry, just went on a tangent!

Hopefully someone can find some kind of solution to my initial problem.

dalchina said:

I would have thought that using the command Brink gave you as a context menu entry would have given you what you sought.

No it doesn't. Brink even said himself that Apply to Folders will be greyed out if you use that command. That's what I need access to: Apply to folders.

dalchina said:

'Apply to folders' implies you have a particular view created in file explorer that you wish to apply.
Therefore you must have an instance of file explorer open with a folder appropriately configured for that button not to be greyed out.

Correct. I have a working registry entry above that does exactly what I need and what you describe above. Unfortunately It just opens to the first tab instead of the second. It's a minor nuisance to switch to the second tab manually, but hey, optimize everything I say.

dalchina said:

I can create a small AHK script that opens explorer at a valid arbitrary folder, then opens that diaologue with the Apply button active... but what use is that?

Or do you perhaps actually mean that you have already created the view.. and in that context then want a quick way to open that dialogue?

Your last question is correct.

Here is my use-case. I often work with large sets of icon files (SVG, ICO, Etc.), and it's extremely helpful when browsing through folders of images that my default view is set to large thumbnails so I can easily inspect the contents of various icon sets without having to manually flip to thumbnails mode for each new folder I explore. So when I need to inspect a lot of images this way, I:

1. Ensure the current open explorer window is set to Large Icons.
2. Right click on the folder background and select "Change Folder and Search Options" (My current working entry).
3. Switch to tab 2, and then click "Apply to Folders".
4. Press enter when windows asks me to confirm.

Then I can go rifling through various folders of images and automatically be presented with large previews.

What I'm looking to accomplish is to skip the tab switch in step three.

When I'm not working with Icons, I greatly prefer to use explorer's details view. So when I'm done with my icon stuff, I repeat the same process above but set the default view to details.

(Note: I have automatic content discovery disabled, so whatever view I make default is applied to every folder on my system.)

Hopefully this clarifies things. I know it's really just a very minor nuisance to switch tabs manually but if there is a way to do it automatically I'd love to know.

dalchina said:

I've created a small Autohotkey script and added it (in my case) to the Tools menu.

Rt click on empty space in file explorer, click Tools, click View tab (well, that's what I've called it for now).

Is that what you're looking for?
(Apply to Folders button seems active)

That's awesome! I don't have much AHK experience but would love to dive in. Thanks much for creating that. Care to share the code?