Set Default Folder View for all Folders in Windows 10

LesFerch · 18 Jan 2022

Compumind said:

@LesFerch -
It would be great if you could enhance the code, as mentioned above.
Make it user friendly and be able to revert any changes in an instant.

I'll give more thought to improved user-friendliness and maybe try something later this year (right now I'm renovating a house, so no programming for a while). But I'm not sure "revert any changes in an instant" is applicable. Nothing is changed in the registry (or even the INI file) until the "Submit" button is clicked. After that, the "Restore" button can be used to roll back to a previous state. It's dealing with changing the default folder view settings, so that requires a File Explorer stop/start. It has to be a batch type approach as opposed to something that's real time per setting.

Compumind said:

@LesFerch -
I used it today to reset my file associations and couldn't get them back in W10 - spent a very long time doing that.

Can you elaborate on that? WinSetView doesn't deal with file associations, so I don't understand how it could be used to reset them.

Compumind · 19 Jan 2022

LesFerch said:

Can you elaborate on that? WinSetView doesn't deal with file associations, so I don't understand how it could be used to reset them.

Sorry, a bit of error on my part. I *reset* all views to Windows Defaults and the program "erased" most but not all of my file associations, as well.

Some interaction there.

FWIW.

LesFerch · 19 Jan 2022

Compumind said:

Sorry, a bit of error on my part. I *reset* all views to Windows Defaults and the program "erased" most but not all of my file associations, as well. Some interaction there.

I'm sure it wasn't WinSetView that removed those file associations, but it could have been some weird behavior related to stopping and starting Explorer. When you used the option to reset folder views to Windows defaults, it would have removed these registry keys:

Code:

HKCU\Software\Classes\Local Settings\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Shell\BagMRU
HKCU\Software\Classes\Local Settings\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Shell\Bags
HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Streams\Defaults
HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\FolderTypes

and then stopped and started Explorer via this PowerShell code:

Code:

Get-process explorer | Stop-Process
Explorer

It's doing pretty much the same thing as the batch file in this tutorial.

None of that code touches file associations. IIRC, the registry key for file associations is:

Code:

HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\FileExts

Microsoft added a hash value to file associations to try to prevent programs from making file association changes without the user's permission. It's discussed here. I just mention that because it's an extra complication that maybe is somehow related to what you encountered.

Anyhow, I tried a bunch of tests just now to try to break file associations on my machine with WinSetView and nothing broke. I've also had no other reports of anything like this.

Is there any chance you have something installed that deals with file associations or Explorer settings? If so, maybe it was affected by the stop/start of File Explorer. Are you able to replicate the issue?

Compumind · 20 Jan 2022

@LesFerch -

I ran your program under the latest build of W10 Pro.

No other known software on this system that would potentially interfere, yet it happened.
Let me try your program again on another system, that will be totally imaged for immediate restoration, just in case.

I greatly appreciate that you care about this issue, as I really want to see your program work the way it is intended.

Will report back.

Compumind · 20 Jan 2022

@LesFerch -

Tried it twice on another W10 system, no problems.

Strange.

P.S. Is there a user guide?

LesFerch · 20 Jan 2022

Compumind said:

@LesFerch -
Tried it twice on another W10 system, no problems.

Good to hear. Thanks for testing!

Compumind said:

@LesFerch -
Is there a user guide?

@Compumind The WinSetView web page now provides much more user-friendly instructions. The interface now also has Standard and Advanced modes. And there's now a Help button in the app that brings up the web page.

Compumind · 09 Feb 2022

LesFerch said:

@Compumind The WinSetView web page now provides much more user-friendly instructions. The interface now also has Standard and Advanced modes. And there's now a Help button in the app that brings up the web page.

Very good!

What I want to do now is set all applicable folders on each drive volume from the root up to have the default view of:

(View ->) Tiles -> Sort by: Type - Ascending -> Group by: Type - Ascending.

Simple as that. Just want to confirm the selection process in WinSetView. Screenshots will do nicely.

Thanks.

LesFerch · 09 Feb 2022

Compumind said:

What I want to do now is set all applicable folders on each drive volume from the root up to have the default view of:

(View ->) Tiles -> Sort by: Type - Ascending -> Group by: Type - Ascending.

Windows doesn't have any concept of setting folder default views by tree or volume. All folder view defaults apply to folder types. If you want Tiles to be your default view for all folder types, WinSetView can certainly do that. If you want Tiles to be the default view for General items (generic) folders only, it can do that too. But if you want Tiles to be the default view for one volume, but not another, you're out of luck there.

One could conceive of a script that traverses all existing folders on a volume and sets the view to Tiles, just as you can do manually, but that wouldn't do anything for new folders. If you were to create a new empty folder on that volume, it would display in the view you have set for General items. If you were to create a new folder on that volume and populate it with jpg images, it would display in the view you have set for Pictures.

So, assuming you want Tiles to be your default view for all folders (regardless of volume) and sort and group by Type, you would do this...