Apply Folder View to All Folders of Same Type in Windows 10  

Thanks for the reply Brink

Had a hunch that was likely to be the case. Back to manual grind as always

Thanks for the link. Will take a look

The "Apply to folders" button will be available in "This PC" if you have either of these values set:

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Classes\Local Settings\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Shell\Bags\AllFolders\Shell]
"FolderType"="Generic"

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Classes\Local Settings\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Shell\Bags\AllFolders\Shell]
"FolderType"="NotSpecified"



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Here's an annoying behavior of "Apply to folders"...

Start by opening "This PC":


Change the view for "This PC" to anything other than the default view. I chose list and group by none:


Using the same Explorer window, navigate to any generic folder, such as C:\ and then bring up the Folder Options, View dialog and click "Apply to folders" (no need to make any view changes first):


Go back to "This PC" and you should see that it has has reverted back to the default view:


The registry activity indicates that the view for "This PC" (and "Network") fall under the Generic folder category even though they are presented differently, so anytime you use the "Apply to folders" button on a generic folder, it affects the views for "This PC" and "Network" and the effect is to revert them to their default view. Logically, if I set a generic folder to List view, then "This PC" should also change to List view when I click "Apply to folders", but it doesn't. So, they don't change nicely together and they don't stay separate. Designs like this can make a user a little irritated.

There is a way to preserve your view settings for "This PC" and "Network" when you use "Apply to folders" and that's to simply open three separate Explorer windows, one with "This PC", one with "Network", and one where you're using the "Apply to folders" button. This works because Explorer will not change the view of an open folder when you click "Apply to folders".

Correct me if I'm wrong but I think that in Windows 7 you can set and apply a window view to ALL system folders.
I tried the tutorial here on my Windows 10 Pro on the "Windows" (system folder) folder and it works but how can I set for example a medium folder view to ALL folders in the system or in my computer?

looked said:

Correct me if I'm wrong but I think that in Windows 7 you can set and apply a window view to ALL system folders. I tried the tutorial here on my Windows 10 Pro on the "Windows" (system folder) folder and it works but how can I set for example a medium folder view to ALL folders in the system or in my computer?

The last Windows version that had an Apply to All Folders button was Windows XP. When clicked, all folders, system-wide, were reset to the current view. Here's a screenshot:


In Windows Vista and above, the button is Apply to Folders. When clicked, it will reset the folder view for the current folder TYPE. For example, if you are looking at a folder of type Pictures and change the view options to what you like and then select "Apply to Folders", all other folders of type Pictures will get that new view.

From Vista all the way up to Windows 11, there is no built-in option to reset all folders of all types in one step. That's one of the reasons WinSetView exists. You can use that tool to reset your folder views system-wide.