Windows 7 show all directories

Select Layout iv. How satisfied are you with this reply? Thanks for your feedback, it helps us improve the site. In reply to Samhrutha G's post on February 2, Samhtutha, That only displays the first level of folders. What I want is the entire tree. But thanks for your response. Microsoft Support, you did NOT answer this question. We already know how to choose the Navigation pane.

There has to be a way to do this All sub folders will appear on the left pan. It may take a while depending on how many sub folders you have. In reply to thibzult's post on October 18, Thanks a lot. This hidden command is very usefull. Check out this link. It has all windows shortcut keys. In reply to RichardMiele's post on January 24, Thanks for the link, Richard. I will go out on a limb and say that in the history of humankind no product has caused more irritation to more people than Windows.

At least not since the invention of the pop-top can and with the possible exception of the Ford Escort. However, I have to use it vis-a-vis my business. Just bought a Windoze 7 machine and its idiotic permissions, among other things, are even more irritating than previous incarnations All I want is for the default for all folders to be medium [icons].

I hear you, Terry. To set the default view for all folders and files to details, follow the four steps described on the Microsoft Support site:. Note: To reset all the folders to the default view settings, repeat these steps, but click Reset All Folders in step 3.

In Vista and Windows 7, you have to follow these steps for five different folder templates to have all Explorer folders show the details view: General Items, Documents, Pictures, Music, and Videos. Even then, a system change may reset your folder views to the Windows default, which uses different views based on the folder's contents. So where does that leave us poor souls who simply want to see all our files and folders in the same view--details, lists, thumbnails, or icons--in every Explorer folder?

I found a different solution here. You have to execute the registry file from " 2. From there on, all folders will be of the "general" type and you only have to change that one. They also mentioned that the folders displayed under "Libraries" can not be changed. Maybe there is another registry hack for that one.

For me it seems like MS didn't go the whole way. Different folder types might be really useful for some people. But they didn't include the obvious features you already stated: 1. Being able to disable Folder Templates. Being able to copy folder templates. Defining you own folder types maybe based on file extensions.

And it should all be customizable from ONE place not in two different places like others mentioned already. OK I add my 2-cent to the "it does not work. Hit and miss and it is in fact "forgotten. You can try over and over again, documents, general, etc. If someone at Microsoft wants to look at it feel free to contact me and I'll give you web meeting. But surely getting this many people verifying the "it does not work" can prove the point.

I have not tried the above registry fix. Will give that a go but I sure wish they' fix this bug. Also many others; folder size as a column or let the folks that developed software to do this work inside of Windows 7, etc. Good old WindowsXP developed by Israeli design team related to Intel core7 team in some desert was monumentally good for its time, perhaps ahead of its time.

When you can't read, you need Icons, and when can't analyze even Icons you need Pictures or Thumbnails. If Microsfot fixes problem, I will fix spelling, OK? Well mine stayed fixed still, like 9 months later. Perhaps people that still have an issue did not get all five types of folders. But using the registry fix to set all folders to "unspecified", I would think that this would make them get reset when windows "determines" that they have music files as an example in them.

Like if windows "figures out" that it should change the folder type down the line for some reason, they may change them to be one of the five types. Im just throwing things out there, because the problem has not reoccurred for me as I have said. Anyways I know the folder types work. Yes its a pain to set 5 items manually, but odds are you only have to do it once.

There are quite a few worse bugs in windows 7 which MS is not fixing either. You all know I am sure, how much they love these kinds of eye candy "intelligence" features. At least they still let you set it to "classic" view. I think windows 8 they may take that away, but i forget where I heard that.

Let me explain for those Microsoft employees who need extra effort understanding simple matters:. This works for Fixed Drives e. Only people like us know this hack. Blatant disrespect of user's settings. Why is it so monumentally difficult to grasp, dear Microsoft?

Does NOT mean we hurt other customers - they're free to select this feature from rightclick menu and stick with it. GET IT?? You're welcome. As of me, being an Engineer, I will simply ram this problem head on and solve it. I rarely fail. I ran into this problem too. However I found that if I select an entire hard drive by selecting its icon in Explorer, then right-click and select the "Customize" tab, there's a an option to "Customize this folder for I suspect the problem with removable media is that it will depend on the content of the media which is re-examined every time; for removable devices it would definitely make more sense to be able to qualify this parameter by device rather than by content.

At least the above will work by session. What I did since Microsoft likes to make new OSs that are extremely annoying I went to my computer opened C: drive highlighted all folders, right clicked, then selected "properties", then selected "customize", look for "Optimize this folder for" then select "general items" and then check the box that says "apply to subfolders" That should do it.

I got this to work no matter what type of folder it was documents, pictures, etc. I hope it works for you all! OK I just figured this out, it's easy although certainly not obvious! In "computer view" select the drive with the folders you want to change. Select a folder or group of folders, right click with the mouse, choose "properties" from the drop down menu. Choose the right-hand tab "customize", choose "optimizze for documents", and check the box that says "apply this template to all subfolders" if that is what you wish to do, and hit OK.

Every folder in the directory and sub directories will now display in list view. They would have been smarter to have had list view under "general items" in my opinion. This problem was driving me crazy because on a notebook computer with a small screen, you don't wan't to see the file details all the goddam time esepcially when you want to look through dozens of folders quickly to find something. The other thing I hate about Win 7 is how it displays folders that contain pictures -- like a little open book with pages sticking out.

The XP display was much better, where folder icon was flat and you could see some of the most recent pictures displayed on the icon. One of the terrible things about software designers is their incessant need to justify their salaries by creating new crap whether it's an improvement or not. I wanted all of my sub folders and files inside of my main folder to be in "list"view.

To achieve this I opened up the main folder and pressed the ALT key. From there it is just like using windows XP. A hidden task bar will open up. I remembered something I read about XP having a maximum number of folders for which it will "remember" the custom setting.

Digging around found this link:. I have no idea how this will play in Windows 7. From "Organize" drop down menu available below the toolbar , selected "Folder and Search Options". Select "Apply to Folders".

It changed all my folders view to "Tiles". I guess you can try for other as well. Follow this article where five steps are shown to apply the same folder view to all folders and sub-folders in a HDD in Windows OS. The same procedure is applicable for your optical drive as well.

I know I'm three years late, but I wanted to say thanks anyway. I noticed this, however: For my second hard drive E: , I was able to right-click on the drive icon at root level and a Customize tab was available, thereby allowing me to set the type of folder option for all the folders on my E: drive.

However, the same technique did not work for C:. No Customize tab was available, therefore, I applied the setting to each root-level folder individually. I've been "suffering" with my folders appearing in many different ways for a long, long time.

I'm not directing my frustration toward you, of course, but if Microsoft is giving the user the option of customizing the type of folder, you'd think all the related controls would be located together. In other words, as users are setting Folder Options under the Personalization section of Control Panel, to me it seems they'd co-locate all the related controls instead of making users frustrated by wondering why the options they set are not being "globally" applied to ALL folders on their computer.

This is useful, can't believe it's only now I've wanted to set all views to a particular type. Other users are correct. This doesn't work, as Folders seem to revert to their "type" depending on their contents.

I had to search hard for this - the "answer" at the start of the thread annoyed me by totally missing the point of the question, bu finding this made it all worth while. This works fine for me except where there ar NO files in the folder, only other folders.

If you drop a tiny text file in then it seems OK. MS sure hate the simple life and I totally agree with Lord Koos comments on the designers. I wish I had his restraint and and could avoid profanity. But that's ok. The real problem is we're talking about two different things which should really be two different threads:. If this is your concern, you have NOT found how to do it, and wish to just vent a little, then fine, I supposed you can post too sigh.

Because of the complete absence of customization options, I surmise nothing will help THAT little situation other than one or several registry hacks. But I have yet to find one. If you do, or you have, please please! I'm sorry, but this is NOT the solution. As soon as you open another folder with different kinds of files, it changes the view setting.

People below who are saying this is the solution are clueless. Fortunately, there is a fix. Download the bat file in the link below, close all windows and apps, and run it as an administrator. What the above "solution" doesn't mention is that MS has screwed up the View settings feature by trying to make Windows "think.

So they thought we needed to be able to view different folders differently if they contain different types of content. So, with Win7, if you dump a bunch of MP3 files into a documents folder, it switches that folder's view setting to "Music". What the above linked registry hack does is it turns of this "smart" detection "feature" and makes all folders "General Items" regardless of what kinds of files they contain.

And every single day I have to waste my time changing individual folders from Large Icons view to Details view again and again and again. Is there seriously no way to see details in the root folder and display only the image files themselves as large icons? Did the brain dead parasites at the Microsoft monopoly never think of the possibility that Large Icons should ONLY apply to image files and the folders that contain them directly? Do you think your users who have more than 20 subfolders of photos need to see 6 of the 20 big brown folder icons when looking up a picture?

Or do you suppose they'd prefer to see a list of their subfolders? Oh, they can just switch the view back and forth every time using our handy drop-down menu point, click, find the thing, point, click, repeat ad nauseum.

Yea, thanks for burdening millions with your time-wasting nonsense. You all belong in jail. Office Office Exchange Server. Not an IT pro? Resources for IT Professionals. Sign in. United States English. Ask a question. Quick access. Search related threads. Remove From My Forums.

Answered by:. Archived Forums. Windows 7 User Interface.