Why is the right pane of File Explorer showing the wrong contents?

I assume you have been moving the location of your default Windows libraries. Have you considered, with a full copy of your data offline, resetting the location without copying your files back to c: drive. Then redoing it. Could I ask how you did the move? Did you use the Windows "Move" facilities found on the "Location" tab when you look at the library properties?

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Thanks for your response.

Caledon Ken said:

Could I ask how you did the move? Did you use the Windows "Move" facilities found on the "Location" tab when you look at the library properties?

Correct :)

It's one of the few Win 10 improvements over Win XP. In XP, it all had to be done by the registry (roughly 8 hacks - not bad). I can't remember how I moved the Win 7 folders.

Caledon Ken said:

Have you considered, with a full copy of your data offline, resetting the location without copying your files back to c: drive. Then redoing it.

I was quite willing to have a go - but the contents of my right pane have now changed relative to my OP :)

You can see that (for the library root only), the right pane separates out the files into sub-folders (as in Win 7 library roots). I think it might have been caused yesterday when I used one of Brink's excellent tutorials to set all my right panes to "Details" view by default.

So, I'll keep this current setup - at least for a few weeks. I need to catch up with all the time I've wasted on this new laptop, trying to convert it to simple XP - or at least Win 7. I'm expecting Windows 11 to show every file folder in the left navigation pane.

However, I'll keep your suggestion in mind. Can you please explain what you mean by this - a list of the actual steps might help:

Caledon Ken said:

...resetting the location without copying your files back to c: drive. Then redoing it.

Thanks.
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What I meant by resetting. When you are the proper library, I say proper library as I'm not sure in your case which is which, and you invoke properties and click on location tab there is an option to restore to default. It will likely ask you do you want to copy files, at least I'm pretty sure it does. Given your C:drive is likely sized for OS and programs and not all your data, I don't think you want to move data files back to C:.

Not sure about Brink's tutorial, they are excellent and I've followed a quite a few myself. With library locations reset you could start File explorer, and select "Options" from the ribbon. This will present a restore defaults button. Having not reviewed Brink's tutorial I'm not sure if clicking this is appropriate. Does Brink's tutorial offer a "Restore" route.

Again I would ensure your data is safe and by safe I mean a copy off your machine. Installing Windows is a doable, recreating some data can't be done.