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DADDY BOB'S COMPUTER Q & A
November 23,
2008
Q.
Windows use to remember how I had my folders
set to open, but now they all open different
than the way I had them set when they were
closed. How can I make all folders remember
their settings?
A.
There are three main things that could be
causing Windows to not remember your folder
settings. The first two are easily
corrected, but rarely are the problem, but
I'll mention them just in case.
First,
there is a setting that tells Windows to
remember the folder's settings. Open My
Computer, (just Computer for Vista users)
click on Tools, then Folder Options. Cursor
down to the item "Remember each folder's
view settings", and be sure it is checked.
The
second cause only affects XP users. When
Windows XP was originally installed, it set
the limit for the number of folders to be
remembered to 200 local and 200 network
folders. Subsequent service packs have
raised this limit to 5000. If you are using
XP without any service packs, then by all
means, install them for no other reason than
they contain many security fixes. The
current service pack is #3. Unfortunately,
service pack #3 cannot be installed unless
the current configuration includes at least
service Pack 1.
So,
before you can install service pack #3, you
have to have installed either service pack
#1 or #2. If you have your computer
set to automatically download and install
Microsoft updates, these service packs will
have been installed automatically. To be
sure, hold down the Windows key, and press
the Pause key to open the System Properties
dialog. Click the General tab, and in the
System section, the current service pack
will be shown under the version number.
For your
information, the registry keys that hold the
folder limits setting are HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Shell\BagMRU
Size for local
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Microsoft\Windows\ShellNoRoam\BagSize
for the network.
As said
earlier, these first two fixes are easy to
do, and most likely aren't the cause for the
problem. All the folder settings are stored
in the registry, and unfortunately, named
numerically with no other designation. This
makes it nearly impossible for a human to
determine which setting is for which folder.
If any one of these settings is incorrect or
corrupt, it can affect the settings of all
the folders.
So, the
drastic step that is required is to delete
all folder settings, and reset them again,
one at a time. The folder settings will all
be reset to what they were when XP or Vista
was installed.
The
easiest way to delete all these individual
folder settings is to just delete the four
registry keys that contain them.
Fortunately, Windows will recreate these
keys when needed so the new folder settings
can be stored in them again.
If you
open
C:\Windows\Documents
and Settings then click on the current users
name folder, you will see the Desktop
folder. Windows uses this folder to display
your desktop. So, since the desktop is
really only a folder, any special icon
location that you set will be lost when
these keys are deleted. The icons will still
be there, but probably not as you had
arranged them.
The four
registry keys to delete are:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Windows\Shell\BagMRU
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Windows\Shell\Bags
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Windows\ShellNoRoam\BagMRU
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Windows\ShellNoRoam\Bags
Since
editing the registry can cause the computer
to cease functioning if the wrong thing is
changed, I have written a little program
that will do it for you safely. This program
checks to see if the limits have been set to
5000, and if not it sets them Then it
deletes the four keys listed above that
contain the folder settings. Explorer has to
be closed and re-opened, or the computer has
to be rebooted for these settings to take
full effect.
The
program is called "ResetFolderSettings.exe"
and is located in the Download section of
this site or can be downloaded by clicking
HERE.
It works on XP and Vista. |
