Changing listing order of files and folders in File Explorer

Microsoft is engaged in an annoying game of intentional behavior modification. Win 10 is making everything default to the OneDrive folder, and they're putting the OneDrive listing prominently so that if you aren't extra careful, you put your stuff in that folder and not the one you want.

I'd like to put the OneDrive folder below the "This PC" and "Network" Icons in the File Explorer listing. Or perhaps I could set a bit to "hide", which would be ideal.

This torqued me enough so that I installed Ubuntu and my machine dual boots now. Using it, and the Libra suite. Works pretty good.

If I'm wrong I may stick around Win 10 for a while. Can anyone help me? Thanks!

Yeah, this seems like an unfortunate trend. Rather than making OneDrive a useful tool that folks adopt willingly (because they've designed it well and made it nice and easy to use) they make its use imperative.

Bleah, Microsoft.

Ubuntu with Gnome and the Librasuite is not that bad, guys.

WizardOfBoz said:

Microsoft is engaged in an annoying game of intentional behavior modification. Win 10 is making everything default to the OneDrive folder, and they're putting the OneDrive listing prominently so that if you aren't extra careful, you put your stuff in that folder and not the one you want.

I'd like to put the OneDrive folder below the "This PC" and "Network" Icons in the File Explorer listing. Or perhaps I could set a bit to "hide", which would be ideal.

This torqued me enough so that I installed Ubuntu and my machine dual boots now. Using it, and the Libra suite. Works pretty good.

If I'm wrong I may stick around Win 10 for a while. Can anyone help me? Thanks!

When you log into an account for the first time there is a chance to decline OneDrive "protection" for your user folders, but it's easy to miss (this is by design, no doubt). It's this automatic "backup" that hijacks folder locations. Sothe first thing to do is check OneDrive settings & make sure backup is disabled for your user folders. This is done via Manage Backup on the Backup tab of the OneDrive settings dialog (right-click the SysTray icon):

When you do this, the folders under This PC will once again point to the folders in your UserProfile folder and not OneDrive. Files must be moved manually.

Once you do this, your user folders are local and only files you explicitly place in the OneDrive folders will be synced to OneDrive.

To move OneDrive to a lower position in the Navigation Pane, set the value of the DWORD value SortOrderIndex under the registry key:

Code:

HKCR\CLSID\{018D5C66-4533-4307-9B53-224DE2ED1FE6}

to a value like 88. (create the value if it doesn't exist)

This is terrific info. I think I have to check to see if other computers have this ... errr.. "feature" activated.

If I turn all that "protection" off it may be that OneDrive is actually useful. That said, I have attached (2Tb) and NAS (2Tb) storage and so I can back my stuff up. And the reason I installed Ubuntu is a new job where we're developing stuff in Haskell and deploying with Kubernetes. So my Ubuntu side will be backed up to the cloud and accessible. And I use Crashplan to do ongoing file backup. So I could live without OneDrive. I'll have to think about that.

Keith, your expertise is obviously considerable. Plus, you explained things clearly. Very helpful to me, and I'm sure to others. Many thanks.

WizardOfBoz said:

Keith, your expertise is obviously considerable. Plus, you explained things clearly. Very helpful to me, and I'm sure to others. Many thanks.

You're quite welcome. Thanks for the feedback.