Change Vista Default Folder View / Make Folders Same
I finally tried to get organized one night and figure out how to make all my folders have a default “list view.” If I have a lot of files in one directory, I usually prefer the list view versus icons, details or tile views. This was easy to do in Windows XP, but with the new ribbon bar and fancy menus in Windows Vista it was a little hard to figure out.
If you want all of your folders to have the same view, check out these ten easy steps.
- 1. Open a folder
2. Click the View tab
3. Select the type of view you want (large icons, details, list, etc.)
4. You can also sort your files at this point (they are sorted by name as default)
5. Click the Organize tab
6. Select Folder and Search Options
7. Click the View menu
8. Click Apply to Folders button (located at top as seen in the picture above)
9. Click Yes to the “Do you want all folders of this type to match this folder’s view settings?” question.
10. Click OK
- Have a beer and enjoy your organized folders!
UPDATE! 8/13/08
After several comments recently that this doesn’t completely work, I looked into it. I guess I never realized that some of the main subdirectories in Documents were not the default view I chose. So here is hopefully the fix . . .
Windows Vista has this stupid new feature called folder types. So the steps above basically just applied to the folder type you had open when you tried them. To fix this, follow the steps above until Step #8. Instead of clicking on “Apply to Folders” click “Reset Folders” and then click “Yes.” Then try the steps above again and it should work!
The only folders which didn’t for me was the main folder (with my name) that has the Music, Pictures, etc subdirectories. And a Contacts folder which I think uses the contacts in Outlook 2007, which I have none of but there is a default icon.
However, therefore, please do note . . . come on now sally boys, you can change the view of two measley folders can’t you? (holding my beer breath hoping this works for you and yours….)
Filed under: Computer Tips, Microsoft
Thanks — new to vista and didn’t think to look there.
Finally list view is back!
Thanks! I thought I tried that but I must have missed a step. Can’t thank you enough!
WOW! tnx man! missed steps 1 and 2… but now everything is how i want it to be!! thanks!
This did not work for me. I want to view them as detailed and after trying this, I get most of them in detailed mode and some in large icon mode. Never had this problem before until Vista. Really kind of annoying. Any suggestions???
wow thx……was tired changing the view every time
Many thanks
I cannot click on Apply to all folders. Why?
super post mate. i was getting so annoyed changing every folder , thanks heaps.
Yes, this is still flawed compared to the (preferred by me) behavior in previous Windows versions.
(1) I don’t want this stack stuff
(2) I want the chosen behavior to be for this WINDOW (and other, new windows), not just this particular folder (i.e. path).
So when I go through those steps and have the window in, say, list view, now change it to detailed, and change directory, the view should still be detailed, not list (like every folder is now).
Stupid gui designers!
Does not work consistently. Some folders still come up in other views.
Found and tried this myself trick back then in XP, worked fine. In vista, your tips simply aint working. (Vista Home Premium & Business ed.)
I am trying to organize my music. The easiest way to determine if a file is a WMA, MP3, WAV or something else is to change the icon size to medium or larger. I tried your tip, and while it kind of works, it doesn’t work for every subdirectory. Is there something that I am missing?
JacobDrJ - this is supposed to change all of your folders to the same type, not just a particular folder (like just Music) . . . I think. However, after several recent comments that this doesn’t work for every folder, I just updated the post with a hopeful fix. Try resetting the folders as explained in the above updated post.
Let me know if this worked!
I found that this will only apply the chosen default the the folder that you are currently viewing and its child folders.
For this to be most effective, you should set it while viewing the top most folder, like the root of your C:\ drive for instance, if you want to apply the default to every folder below.
Also, Stacking can be changed by double clicking on the arrow that shows-up on the column header as you mouse over it… so just mouse over the column header as if you were going to adjust the sort, look for the little arrow, double click on the arrow, then deselect which ever Stacks are setup.
Good luck. Nice post to the author!!
Perfect! Looked up on Google. Thanx dude, big help.
BC’s right. For the longest time, I thought you could just set the “Make all folders like this one” and have it convert those annoying Pic/Music folders over to regular file folder template. But, that’s not the case.
Since Vista uses different templates for folder types (All Files, Documents, Pic/Music, etc), when you click “Apply current folder settings to all”, it only applies current folder settings to other folders using the same template. So, if you’re applying an “All Files” file folder template, it’ll skip over the view change on Pic/Music folders.
So, you have to go to your root-drive (EG: C:\), select each folder, right-click for Properties, then click the “Customize” tab (if it has one … if not, then either the folders are hard-set system folders, or all are already using the same template…not sure). You can then select the folder-type template, and check the box “apply to all subfolders”. If the “Apply” button comes up, then sure enough you have some rogue folder cruising around in there using some different format. If “Apply” stays grayed out, just click “OK”, since more than likely all the folders/subfolders are using the same template.
Once you do this, you then have to pick a file folder again, go back to the “Organize Folders” option, and do the “apply current folder view to all”. That way it’ll catch any of those lame, rogue pic/music folders that just converted to “All Files” folder template.
Personally, I think this little sub-discussion just highlights why Vista is such a pain in the butt. It’s more stable and has more bells/whistles, but it’s the biggest pain in the butt to do minor things like this in it. This is a testament to the programmers having more control over how the UI was designed then the UI team. The programmers got to add more features, but they took things everyone already knows (like setting up default folder views), added in layers of complexity, then disassociated how to set it all up by making you dig into 2 totally different areas (”organize folder” option & the folder “properties”) to change things that impact the SAME thing…folder views!
Vista is not bad, but the UI execution sure leaves a lot to be desired. It’s the 21st century. No matter how complex software is, good User Interfaces should make it intuitive by grouping like-minded activities together or using Wizards to step folks though complex tasks (which this has annoyingly turned into).
Thx man, that really helped !
Thanks, now all folders openin are by default in list view