Please help if you can. How to edit FOLDER tooltips in the registry.

I have already inquired about this in the past, but I can't seem to get a response from anyone. I would really appreciate some help with this please :).

In order to customize which fields/properties are displayed in the tooltips for any given file type you can edit the string value in the registry at:

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\SystemFileAssociations\ * - edit the "InfoTip" string value
or
Choose individual file extensions to edit the tooltips for only those specific file types.

My question is:
How can this be done for FOLDERS? I have searched everywhere trying to find out but I can only find the info for FILES, not folders.

For example, there is an excellent tutorial here: Customize Windows Explorer Tooltips - gHacks Tech News
Unfortunately, even though it mentions both files AND folders, there is no explanation for folders.

dalchina said:

I don't know if it works- not tried it- but there's this:
Windows Explorer: Folder Comments | Windows Secrets Lounge #6 on.

I'm NOT looking to add comments to the tooltip. I'd simply like to know how to edit the properties (size, date created etc...). This is easy to do for files, including different file types.

Also see:
Customize Windows Explorer Tooltips - gHacks Tech News which might be of interest.

Seriously? That is the EXACT link I put in the original post. As I said, it only explains how to edit tooltip properties for FILES, not FOLDERS.

I guess no one can help with this then. Oh well.

Tags or infotip can't save in the folder themselves like a file. There is no way to use registry to enable this function. Tags and infotip are saved in a hidden file called "desktop.ini" Look at this thread: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/win...th-desktop-ini .
Instead of making a desktop.ini file by yourself, you can install this app called stylefolder by Xaviersoft studios : Xaviorsoft Studios and use only the "infotip" option.

sleepless said:

I'm NOT looking to add comments to the tooltip. I'd simply like to know how to edit the properties (size, date created etc...). This is easy to do for files, including different file types.

Files and Folders are very different objects... and their properties use very different paradigms, given that a file system folder is basically just a container in Windows.

As already posted, the only documented way to show very basic file system folder properties is via a Tooltip (implemented via a desktop.ini descriptional file)... but it does not include any methods to edit/change the container's properties, only provide a very basic text string as info.

See Microsoft's How to Customize Folders with Desktop.ini documentation for more info.

Happy to be proved wrong but I only know of the Windows API method of Shell.Application Folder.GetDetailsOf. AFAIK there's no method to amend details, i.e. the equivalent of SetDetailsOf. Why would there be? It's just a container.

Again AFAIK, the only info that can be changed dynamically is a descriptor about its contents (i.e. General, Documents, Pictures, Music or Videos...) but these are not the folder's properties, just a guess at the folder's contents.

Recently, I figured out how to edit the InfoTip for Directories and customized the information to my personal liking. In fact, I figured out how to add a details tab to folders and edit the Preview Details and Full Details as well.

To answer your question....launch registry editor and navigate to HKCR\Directory. There should be a string called "InfoTip". The value should start with "prop" followed by a colon and a list of a number of system properties like "system.itemname", "system.itemtype", "system.datemodified", "system.datecreated", etc. Each individual property should be separated by a semicolon. You can find a whole list of properties to add from here: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/win...operties/props You are probably interested in the "Core" properties. Not all of the properties return any sort of value. And I would minimize the number of properties shown in the InfoTip to only the most important to not slow down displaying data.


That leads me to a few questions for some of the other forum members....

1. Directory InfoTips show a total file size and a list of the first few files present. However, the InfoTip string in HKCR\Directory has no such system properties listed. In fact, if you add the "system.filecount" and "systemtotalfilesize" properties to preview details or full details, no information is listed. Does anyone know how the InfoTip shows the total size and how to get that info to show in full or preview details.

2. There are also other registry keys for folder type objects in the registry as well, like HKCR\AllFileSystemObjects and HKCR\Folder. I am guessing that Folders includes the normal directories that folks use in Explorer and Folders includes both Directories and special folders like MyComputer, etc.. Is that correct? And AllFileSystemObjects includes all Folders and Files, right? I am also guessing you can add infotips to Folder registry key as well, right?

Thanks!