Guest littlenemo Posted December 16, 2007 Posted December 16, 2007 For as long as I can remember I've been baffled by the 'Folder options' on the View menu of folders in Windows (I have Windows 98). I've never been able to get it to work the way I would like, so I've more or less tolerated its behavior and put up with it. Nor have I been able to find a decent explanation anywhere of what exactly some of those options do, either from Microsoft or from the countless Windows support websites I have visited over the years. I'm not sure if I just don't understand the way it's supposed to work, or if the program is just not functioning the way it's supposed to. Maybe someone on a discussion group somewhere can help me out. First of all, I would like the view in all of my folders to look exactly alike one another. My preference is the 'List' view. Under 'Folder Options' on the 'View' tab, in the section 'Folder Views', it says 'You can make all your folders look the same' along with a button labled 'Like Current Folder'. But the semantics here are vague and ambiguous. Does this 'look like' pertain to the 'Large Icons'--'Small Icons'--'List'--'Details' settings...or something else? No matter how often I have tried to make all of my folders present me with the 'List' view by using this button, it fails. Even for the particular folder which was open and from which I tried to make this setting, I will often come back to this folder later after some change has been made, and the 'Large Icons' will have reappeared. Then again, if I change the view to 'List', it doesn't seem to have any effect on subfolders of the folder I make the change to. If I want the subfolders to have the 'List' view, I have to go through each of them and manually make the change...which of course, will subsequently disappear when any change is made to the contents of the folder. Exasperating, to say the least. But I have put up with it, while wasting a lot of time clicking on view option settings. The associated help tip which pops up when you drop the '?' on the button seems to mean that by clicking on it, all of the folders on my computer will be forced to have the same view settings as the ones I have set in the current window. No such luck! More ambiguity: In the 'Advanced settings' window of this tab, there is a checkbox for 'Remember each folder's view settings', and for as long as I can remember I have had this checkbox 'set'...but it seems to have absolutely no effect upon retaining the settings I want. The associated help tip which pops up when you drop the '?' (help) on it seems to indicate that it should do just that--but it doesn't! Also under these 'Advanced settings', there is a section for 'Managing pairs of Web pages and folders' which gives you a set of choices (radio buttons). For these particular settings, all you get when you drop the '?' on them is the pop up 'No Help topic is associated with this item'. Great. I guess it's supposed to be clear what is meant by each of the choices, but it certainly isn't to me. My initial assumption was that they are referring to Web pages which are 'saved' as 1) an HTML file, and 2) the folder which has a similar name and contains images, etc. I save a lot of Web pages for reference and leisurely offline viewing, and initially I saved them as the 'pair'--file and folder. But because of the way in which folders and files are organized within a folder, it was inevitable that I would inadvertently allow the file and folder to get separated and 'lost' from one another when organizing and moving them around from folder to folder and drive to drive. Then I discovered how to save the Web page as a single (MIME-encoded) file (having the .mht extension and which Microsoft refers to as 'Web-archive' format). This more or less solved my problem of losing the 'folder' associated with the HTML file. Later on, I discovered the 'Managing pairs of Web pages and folders' section which seems to offer the option of managing the 'pair' in several ways. But again, there appears to be ambiguity without sufficient explanation to resolve it. For example, the first choice listed says 'Show and manage the pair as a single file', and the third choice says 'Show both parts but manage as a single file'. (?). For the life of me, I can't distinguish these 2 choices. The second choice, 'Show both parts and manage them individually' appears to be the 'default' that I was originally saddled with. I don't remember if this radio button was the one originally checked, but currently I have the first choice selected--'Show and manage the pair as a single file', but I suspect that doesn't work the way I think it should since my earliest 'saves' as the file-folder pair still get 'separated' inadvertently (i.e. they have to be managed individually). So, either these options do not work as it seems, or they do not mean what I think they do. One reason I bring this up is that for some time now I have been considering using Firefox instead of IE. Correct me if I'm wrong, but a cursory reading of the Help files for Firefox seemed to indicate that Firefox (v.2.0) does not save Web pages in the single-file, MIME-encoded .mht format, and I would hate to give that up, given the number of Web pages I save (and manually manage). I'm not sure if Firefox has provisions, as IE seems to have (even though they appear not to work) for handling Web pages in a unified, clean way. Even with all of its problems, I would probably stick with IE simply because of the choices it gives with regard to saving Web pages--if I could get it to do what I think it should do. So it anybody out there can clarify the situation for me, it would be greatly appreciated. -- little nemo in slumberland
Guest Don Phillipson Posted December 16, 2007 Posted December 16, 2007 Re: Folder Options View Settings Confusion "littlenemo" <littlenemo@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message news:D83C54AB-E95E-4793-8DF4-E8DA411BDCEB@microsoft.com... > First of all, I would like the view in all of my folders to look exactly > alike one another. My preference is the 'List' view. Under 'Folder Options' > on the 'View' tab, in the section 'Folder Views', it says 'You can make all > your folders look the same' along with a button labled 'Like Current Folder'. > . . . No matter how often I have tried to make all of my folders > present me with the 'List' view by using this button, it fails. Even for the > particular folder which was open and from which I tried to make this setting, > I will often come back to this folder later after some change has been made, > and the 'Large Icons' will have reappeared. . . . > > More ambiguity: In the 'Advanced settings' window of this tab, there is a > checkbox for 'Remember each folder's view settings', and for as long as I can > remember I have had this checkbox 'set'...but it seems to have absolutely no > effect upon retaining the settings I want. The associated help tip which > pops up when you drop the '?' (help) on it seems to indicate that it should > do just that--but it doesn't! These well-known bugs in Win98 EXPLORER seem to persist in WinXP. This is one of the reasons some users prefer other PC browsers, e.g. PowerDesk, which are more stable and add a few extra functions (e.g. F-key shortcuts for Copy to, Move to etc.) For the Internet browser, Firefox has fewer options than IE. Most users have chosen it for security reasons (Mozilla software is the target of malware much less often than MS.) My Firefox is adequately fast on my 2.8 GHz PC but on a 1.3 GHz PC (under WinXP) IE is appreciably faster. -- Don Phillipson Carlsbad Springs (Ottawa, Canada)
Guest BD Posted December 16, 2007 Posted December 16, 2007 Re: Folder Options View Settings Confusion "littlenemo" <littlenemo@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message news:D83C54AB-E95E-4793-8DF4-E8DA411BDCEB@microsoft.com... > For as long as I can remember I've been baffled by the 'Folder options' on > the View menu of folders in Windows (I have Windows 98). I've never been > able to get it to work the way I would like, so I've more or less > tolerated > its behavior and put up with it. Nor have I been able to find a decent > explanation anywhere of what exactly some of those options do, either from > Microsoft or from the countless Windows support websites I have visited > over > the years. I'm not sure if I just don't understand the way it's supposed > to > work, or if the program is just not functioning the way it's supposed to. > Maybe someone on a discussion group somewhere can help me out. > > First of all, I would like the view in all of my folders to look exactly > alike one another. My preference is the 'List' view. Under 'Folder > Options' > on the 'View' tab, in the section 'Folder Views', it says 'You can make > all > your folders look the same' along with a button labled 'Like Current > Folder'. > But the semantics here are vague and ambiguous. Does this 'look like' > pertain to the 'Large Icons'--'Small Icons'--'List'--'Details' > settings...or > something else? No matter how often I have tried to make all of my > folders > present me with the 'List' view by using this button, it fails. Even for > the > particular folder which was open and from which I tried to make this > setting, > I will often come back to this folder later after some change has been > made, > and the 'Large Icons' will have reappeared. Then again, if I change the > view to 'List', it doesn't seem to have any effect on subfolders of the > folder I make the change to. If I want the subfolders to have the 'List' > view, I have to go through each of them and manually make the > change...which > of course, will subsequently disappear when any change is made to the > contents of the folder. Exasperating, to say the least. But I have put > up > with it, while wasting a lot of time clicking on view option settings. > The > associated help tip which pops up when you drop the '?' on the button > seems > to mean that by clicking on it, all of the folders on my computer will be > forced to have the same view settings as the ones I have set in the > current > window. No such luck! > > More ambiguity: In the 'Advanced settings' window of this tab, there is a > checkbox for 'Remember each folder's view settings', and for as long as I > can > remember I have had this checkbox 'set'...but it seems to have absolutely > no > effect upon retaining the settings I want. The associated help tip which > pops up when you drop the '?' (help) on it seems to indicate that it > should > do just that--but it doesn't! > > Also under these 'Advanced settings', there is a section for 'Managing > pairs > of Web pages and folders' which gives you a set of choices (radio > buttons). > For these particular settings, all you get when you drop the '?' on them > is > the pop up 'No Help topic is associated with this item'. Great. I guess > it's supposed to be clear what is meant by each of the choices, but it > certainly isn't to me. My initial assumption was that they are referring > to > Web pages which are 'saved' as 1) an HTML file, and 2) the folder which > has a > similar name and contains images, etc. I save a lot of Web pages for > reference and leisurely offline viewing, and initially I saved them as the > 'pair'--file and folder. But because of the way in which folders and > files > are organized within a folder, it was inevitable that I would > inadvertently > allow the file and folder to get separated and 'lost' from one another > when > organizing and moving them around from folder to folder and drive to > drive. > Then I discovered how to save the Web page as a single (MIME-encoded) file > (having the .mht extension and which Microsoft refers to as 'Web-archive' > format). This more or less solved my problem of losing the 'folder' > associated with the HTML file. Later on, I discovered the 'Managing pairs > of > Web pages and folders' section which seems to offer the option of managing > the 'pair' in several ways. But again, there appears to be ambiguity > without > sufficient explanation to resolve it. For example, the first choice > listed > says 'Show and manage the pair as a single file', and the third choice > says > 'Show both parts but manage as a single file'. (?). For the life of me, > I > can't distinguish these 2 choices. The second choice, 'Show both parts > and > manage them individually' appears to be the 'default' that I was > originally > saddled with. I don't remember if this radio button was the one > originally > checked, but currently I have the first choice selected--'Show and manage > the > pair as a single file', but I suspect that doesn't work the way I think it > should since my earliest 'saves' as the file-folder pair still get > 'separated' inadvertently (i.e. they have to be managed individually). > So, > either these options do not work as it seems, or they do not mean what I > think they do. > > One reason I bring this up is that for some time now I have been > considering > using Firefox instead of IE. Correct me if I'm wrong, but a cursory > reading > of the Help files for Firefox seemed to indicate that Firefox (v.2.0) does > not save Web pages in the single-file, MIME-encoded .mht format, and I > would > hate to give that up, given the number of Web pages I save (and manually > manage). I'm not sure if Firefox has provisions, as IE seems to have > (even > though they appear not to work) for handling Web pages in a unified, clean > way. Even with all of its problems, I would probably stick with IE simply > because of the choices it gives with regard to saving Web pages--if I > could > get it to do what I think it should do. So it anybody out there can > clarify > the situation for me, it would be greatly appreciated. > -- > little nemo in slumberland The view options are designed to make all of your folders look the same when you open them. If the current folder has Details selected then you get the Details view for all. That having been said, IIRC there is a limit on the number of folders that can be set using the View settings BD
Guest littlenemo Posted December 16, 2007 Posted December 16, 2007 Re: Folder Options View Settings Confusion Don-- I have never run across any discussion of these 'well-known bugs' in the thousands of tips and solutions to problems I have seen on Windows support sites or forums. I couldn't find anything in the Microsoft Knowledge Base either. I think I may have occasionally seen a passing reference to such bugs here and there, but no discussion of solutions or fixes. If the problem persists even into XP, why hasn't Microsoft bothered to fix it? I have read about add-ons such as Windows Power Toys and Tweak UI, but I'm not familiar with them--do they perhaps have a solution to these 'bugs'? If you know the location of any in-depth discussion of the problem, could you direct me to it? I have Googled and browsed high and low and cannot find anything regarding it. -- little nemo in slumberland "Don Phillipson" wrote: > These well-known bugs in Win98 EXPLORER seem to > persist in WinXP. This is one of the reasons some users > prefer other PC browsers, e.g. PowerDesk, which are more > stable and add a few extra functions (e.g. F-key shortcuts > for Copy to, Move to etc.) > -- > Don Phillipson > Carlsbad Springs > (Ottawa, Canada)
Guest littlenemo Posted December 16, 2007 Posted December 16, 2007 Re: Folder Options View Settings Confusion BD-- That's my problem BD--That view setting that sets all folder to look like the current one simply doesn't work. If there is an upper limit to the number of folders that can be set that way, perhaps you could tell me what it is. As far as I know the feature has not been working right from the beginning (when I had far fewer folders). Is there some way of finding out how many folders I have on my computer, short of some kind of brute-force approach? By the way, I'm not familiar with 'IIRC'--what does it mean? -- little nemo in slumberland "BD" wrote: > The view options are designed to make all of your folders look the same when > you open them. If the current folder has Details selected then you get the > Details view for all. > That having been said, IIRC there is a limit on the number of folders that > can be set using the View settings > > BD
Guest Roger Fink Posted December 17, 2007 Posted December 17, 2007 Re: Folder Options View Settings Confusion [sNIP] > > More ambiguity: In the 'Advanced settings' window of this tab, there > is a checkbox for 'Remember each folder's view settings', and for as > long as I can remember I have had this checkbox 'set'...but it seems > to have absolutely no effect upon retaining the settings I want. > The associated help tip which pops up when you drop the '?' (help) on > it seems to indicate that it should do just that--but it doesn't! > [sNIP] I don't know if this will solve the problem but on my Explorer setup "Remember each folder's view settings" is unchecked, and I recall this as being necessary to finally be able to get the "Like Current Folder" clickbar to have its intended effect. So once you uncheck that you would then need to click a folder in the Explorer tree, then single click a file on the right, then click the preferred view that you want from the four choices in the dropdown View menu, then click "Like Current Folder". Not much downside in trying it. I use a very old version of Powerdesk myself. Not perfect, but no problems in the areas where you are having difficulty.
Guest Roger Fink Posted December 17, 2007 Posted December 17, 2007 Re: Folder Options View Settings Confusion Roger Fink wrote: > [sNIP] > > >> >> More ambiguity: In the 'Advanced settings' window of this tab, there >> is a checkbox for 'Remember each folder's view settings', and for as >> long as I can remember I have had this checkbox 'set'...but it seems >> to have absolutely no effect upon retaining the settings I want. >> The associated help tip which pops up when you drop the '?' (help) on >> it seems to indicate that it should do just that--but it doesn't! >> > > [sNIP] > > I don't know if this will solve the problem but on my Explorer setup > "Remember each folder's view settings" is unchecked, and I recall > this as being necessary to finally be able to get the "Like Current > Folder" clickbar to have its intended effect. So once you uncheck > that you would then need to click a folder in the Explorer tree, then > single click a file on the right, then click the preferred view that > you want from the four choices in the dropdown View menu, then click > "Like Current Folder". Not much downside in trying it. > > I use a very old version of Powerdesk myself. Not perfect, but no > problems in the areas where you are having difficulty. Note that the "Like Current Folder" setting applies to other properties besides the four settings in the View menu. Before you click it, you can set the file categories displayed, their order, and their size, by right clicking the bar in the right hand pane. Whatever adjustments you make should get picked up in the system next time you open up Explorer.
Guest glee Posted December 17, 2007 Posted December 17, 2007 Re: Folder Options View Settings Confusion 1. Click Start> Settings> Folder Options> View tab. Uncheck (clear) the box for "Remember each folder's view settings" and click OK. 2. If you have TweakUI installed, click Start> Settings> Control Panel> TweakUI. Click the Explorer tab, uncheck (clear) the box for "Save Explorer window settings", and click OK. 3. Open only one instance of Windows Explorer, to C: Click View menu> List (or whatever view you want), and also adjust any other view settings as you want them, such as the file-type order. Hit the F5 key. Click the View menu> Folder Options (or Tools menu> Folder Options), then click the View tab. Click the "Like Current Folder" button, and click OK. Close Explorer by holding down the CTRL key while clicking the X in the upper right corner (Do NOT use File menu> Close). You *must* hold down the CTRL key while closing the Explorer window. If you still have trouble, first backup your Registry: click Start>Run, type: scanregw |click OK| When prompted, say Yes to backing up the Registry. Then open the Registry Editor (Start>Run>Regedit) and navigate to this key: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer Look for a value in the right-hand pane named "NoSaveSettings" If found, right-click "NoSaveSettings" and click Delete. Close Regedit, and then run through procedure #3 above, again. If you still need help after that, have a look here, on MVP Ron Badour's web site: http://home.satx.rr.com/badour/html/tips_a_-_d.html Scroll down to: CHANGING ICON DISPLAY DEFAULT IN DUAL-PANE WINDOWS and CHANGING ICON DISPLAY DEFAULT IN SINGLE-PANE WINDOWS -- Glen Ventura, MS MVP Shell/User, A+ AumHa VSOP: http://aumha.net DTS-L.ORG: http://66.39.69.143/ "littlenemo" <littlenemo@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message news:D83C54AB-E95E-4793-8DF4-E8DA411BDCEB@microsoft.com... > For as long as I can remember I've been baffled by the 'Folder options' on > the View menu of folders in Windows (I have Windows 98). I've never been > able to get it to work the way I would like, so I've more or less tolerated > its behavior and put up with it. Nor have I been able to find a decent > explanation anywhere of what exactly some of those options do, either from > Microsoft or from the countless Windows support websites I have visited over > the years. I'm not sure if I just don't understand the way it's supposed to > work, or if the program is just not functioning the way it's supposed to. > Maybe someone on a discussion group somewhere can help me out. > > First of all, I would like the view in all of my folders to look exactly > alike one another. My preference is the 'List' view. Under 'Folder Options' > on the 'View' tab, in the section 'Folder Views', it says 'You can make all > your folders look the same' along with a button labled 'Like Current Folder'. > But the semantics here are vague and ambiguous. Does this 'look like' > pertain to the 'Large Icons'--'Small Icons'--'List'--'Details' settings...or > something else? No matter how often I have tried to make all of my folders > present me with the 'List' view by using this button, it fails. Even for the > particular folder which was open and from which I tried to make this setting, > I will often come back to this folder later after some change has been made, > and the 'Large Icons' will have reappeared. Then again, if I change the > view to 'List', it doesn't seem to have any effect on subfolders of the > folder I make the change to. If I want the subfolders to have the 'List' > view, I have to go through each of them and manually make the change...which > of course, will subsequently disappear when any change is made to the > contents of the folder. Exasperating, to say the least. But I have put up > with it, while wasting a lot of time clicking on view option settings. The > associated help tip which pops up when you drop the '?' on the button seems > to mean that by clicking on it, all of the folders on my computer will be > forced to have the same view settings as the ones I have set in the current > window. No such luck! > > More ambiguity: In the 'Advanced settings' window of this tab, there is a > checkbox for 'Remember each folder's view settings', and for as long as I can > remember I have had this checkbox 'set'...but it seems to have absolutely no > effect upon retaining the settings I want. The associated help tip which > pops up when you drop the '?' (help) on it seems to indicate that it should > do just that--but it doesn't! > > Also under these 'Advanced settings', there is a section for 'Managing pairs > of Web pages and folders' which gives you a set of choices (radio buttons). > For these particular settings, all you get when you drop the '?' on them is > the pop up 'No Help topic is associated with this item'. Great. I guess > it's supposed to be clear what is meant by each of the choices, but it > certainly isn't to me. My initial assumption was that they are referring to > Web pages which are 'saved' as 1) an HTML file, and 2) the folder which has a > similar name and contains images, etc. I save a lot of Web pages for > reference and leisurely offline viewing, and initially I saved them as the > 'pair'--file and folder. But because of the way in which folders and files > are organized within a folder, it was inevitable that I would inadvertently > allow the file and folder to get separated and 'lost' from one another when > organizing and moving them around from folder to folder and drive to drive. > Then I discovered how to save the Web page as a single (MIME-encoded) file > (having the .mht extension and which Microsoft refers to as 'Web-archive' > format). This more or less solved my problem of losing the 'folder' > associated with the HTML file. Later on, I discovered the 'Managing pairs of > Web pages and folders' section which seems to offer the option of managing > the 'pair' in several ways. But again, there appears to be ambiguity without > sufficient explanation to resolve it. For example, the first choice listed > says 'Show and manage the pair as a single file', and the third choice says > 'Show both parts but manage as a single file'. (?). For the life of me, I > can't distinguish these 2 choices. The second choice, 'Show both parts and > manage them individually' appears to be the 'default' that I was originally > saddled with. I don't remember if this radio button was the one originally > checked, but currently I have the first choice selected--'Show and manage the > pair as a single file', but I suspect that doesn't work the way I think it > should since my earliest 'saves' as the file-folder pair still get > 'separated' inadvertently (i.e. they have to be managed individually). So, > either these options do not work as it seems, or they do not mean what I > think they do. > > One reason I bring this up is that for some time now I have been considering > using Firefox instead of IE. Correct me if I'm wrong, but a cursory reading > of the Help files for Firefox seemed to indicate that Firefox (v.2.0) does > not save Web pages in the single-file, MIME-encoded .mht format, and I would > hate to give that up, given the number of Web pages I save (and manually > manage). I'm not sure if Firefox has provisions, as IE seems to have (even > though they appear not to work) for handling Web pages in a unified, clean > way. Even with all of its problems, I would probably stick with IE simply > because of the choices it gives with regard to saving Web pages--if I could > get it to do what I think it should do. So it anybody out there can clarify > the situation for me, it would be greatly appreciated. > -- > little nemo in slumberland
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