Enable or Disable Auto Arrange in Folders in Windows 10  

Thanks for all your help. I've heard others complain about these desktop auto arrange quirks, so for whatever reason, I've gotten afflicted. I’ll likely just revert to an earlier image file and just keep this BAT file for my other computer which works fine with it

Brink said:

Hello Gerry, :)

If you like, you could use OPTION ONE in the tutorial below for the Windows 8 version in Windows 10 for this. I didn't include it in the Windows 10 version since that part is applied to both "This PC" and "Quick access", and auto arrange isn't disabled in only these two locations. if that's ok with you, then this below should work nicely for you.

Windows Explorer Auto Arrange - Disable in Windows 8

Hello Brink ,

just wanted to say thank you for those awesome tutorials and BAT files to allow us non-tech people the joy of arranging our files in whatever way we enjoy again. Microsoft really droped the ball not giving its users the option to turn it on or off.

Litte question from my side. I am running Windows 10 Home and used your above linked Bat file for Win. 8.1 that allows me to keep the normal view of the drives in "This PC" folder. Works like a charm even under Win 10. However, is there a way to modify the default view to Medium icons instead of details and also keep auto-arrange on by default? Basically the Option 3 A) from your windows 10 tutorial but maintaining the normal view in the "This PC" folder?

This is the tutorial I am refering to: Auto Arrange in Folders - Enable or Disable in Windows 10 - Windows 10 Forums

Having the default view on medium icons would be a nice bonus but most important for me would be the option of having auto-arrange on by default so I can switch it off when needed instead of vice versa :) (which is the case when running that win 8.1 bat file) Would this be possible? Or is it too much work on your side to ask for?

Kind Regards

Max

Brink said:

Hello Max, and welcome to Ten Forums. :)

If you like, you could set one folder to use medium icons, and then use apply to folders to do so. When you disable auto arrange, the .bat sets all folders to use the "General Items" folder template to make this possible to do.

https://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/3...dows-10-a.html

Ok your officially my hero now lol

Thank you very much. That worked. Now any new folder I create has Medium Icons and Auto-Arrange on :)

Thats perfect. Fascinating how simple solutions are the easiest sometimes

Thanks for the very good article.
As for Windows 7 and Windows 8, the full row select setting is very useful. Disabling the Sniff Folder settings is very useful too.

But be careful !! As for Windows 7 and 8, disabling the Auto-Arrange feature will have a very bad side-effect if you use network shares. Indeed, this will cause a refresh of the Windows Explorer folder. This will have a bad behavior when you try to name a new created file or folder, as it will be refreshed few seconds after being created...
Here is a scenario description to clarify the issue:
1. You create a new folder on a shared folder (the shared folder must contain at least 1 another folder)
2. Windows Explorer gives the focus inside the folder name, which let you replace the default "New Folder" name.
3. You begin to type your new folder name, for instance "ExampleFolder"
4. Few milliseconds after beginning typing the new name (you had time to type "Examp" for instance), the folder is refreshed, and the name is resetted to "New Folder", although you still have the focus in the folder object.
5. You have to retype the new folder name "ExampleFolder" from the beginning.
=> This behavior will make you waste a lot of time and will lead to confusion as your new folder names will be truncated if your don't take care. For instance the folder name of the scenario can result to "leFolder" if you didn't see that the folder name was refreshed after typing "Examp".

So I don't recommend disabling the Auto-Arrange feature.

Hi Brink,
I was talking about Windows 10. But like I said, the issue I described was also the same on Windows 7 and 8 (with the appropriate provided solutions).
The issue appears when the FWF_EXTENDEDTILES bit is activated in the folder flags registry value (FFlags).
This flag (0x02000000) changes the type of the control used in File Explorer to a List View control, which has a different behavior.
This is what allows to disable the Full Row Select.
In the solution provided here, the flags are set to 0x43000000.
Also, I wonder why the FWF_NOHEADERINALLVIEWS flag (0x01000000) is enable here, as it does seems to not have any incidence.
I don't see any difference between 0x43000000 and 0x42000000: column headers are shown only in the Details view.

Anyway, I don't recommend activating the 0x02000000 flag.
Like many people, I would prefer disabling the Full Row select, and be able to Auto-Arrange files in Tiles view, but the associated drawback is too much crippling.