Change or reset Internet Explorer settings

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Change Internet Explorer settings

There are many changes you can make to customize your browsing experience in Internet Explorer. To view all settings and options, open Internet Explorer on the desktop, select Tools > Internet options.

Reset Internet Explorer settings

You can reset Internet Explorer settings to what they were when Internet Explorer was first installed on your PC. This is useful for troubleshooting problems that may be caused by settings that were changed after installation. Be aware that this process isn’t reversible, and all previous Internet Explorer settings are lost after reset.

Close all open windows and programs.

Open Internet Explorer, select Tools > Internet options.

Select the Advanced tab.

In the Reset Internet Explorer Settings dialog box, select Reset.

In the box, Are you sure you want to reset all Internet Explorer settings?, select Reset.

When Internet Explorer finishes applying default settings, select Close, and then select OK. Restart your PC to apply changes.

If Internet Explorer won’t open, or pages won’t load.

If Internet Explorer won’t open, or if pages aren’t loading, there may be an add-on that is interfering with the process. To tell whether this issue is with an add-on or not, you can try the following:

Find your processor speed.

Select Start > Settings > System > About.

Under Device specifications, see System type.

Based on your processor speed, choose the appropriate line of code below and copy and paste or type the code into the Search box on the toolbar.

For 32-bit:
«C:\Program Files (x86)\Internet Explorer\iexplore.exe» -extoff

For 64-bit:
«C:\Program Files\Internet Explorer\iexplore.exe» -extoff

Internet Explorer will open and you can find out which add-ons were causing issues. To manage add-ons in Internet Explorer, see Manage add-ons in Internet Explorer 11.

How to Change The Windows 7 Explorer Default Folder

In Windows 7, the UI including the taskbar, jump lists, etc. was a huge upgrade. But what about the folder shortcut on your taskbar? I find it helpful being that I can just click it and I’m instantly in Windows Explorer sitting in my Libraries folders. But like any groovy geek, I like to choose my own destiny, so let’s change where it points me!

How To Change Your Explorer’s Default Folder on Windows 7

Step 1

Right-click your Explorer taskbar icon and select Properties.

Note that you may have to Right-Click it and then right-click it again within the jump list that appears to get to the context menu where you can select Properties.

Step 2

The shortcut tab should open by default, but if it doesn’t just click the Shortcut tab.

The only area of interest on this tab is the Target box. By default the target will point to:

This location is exactly where we want it to point, to so don’t modify that at all. What we’re going to do is add some text after it.

Type a single space after the %windir%explorer.exe part, and then Type your folder path right after it. For example, I want it to point to my Downloads folder so mine becomes:

Or I could have just put %userprofile%\downloads\ since that will automatically point to the C:\Users\grooveDexter\ folder for me. Notice I didn’t change the first part, I just added the folder location right after explorer.exe. This procedure might sound a little confusing, so refer to the screenshot below as it explains it a bit more clearly. Don’t forget to Click OK to save changes!

From now on when you click the Windows Explorer shortcut on your taskbar, then it will open up to the folder you specified in Step 2! Groovy eh?

Set default in File Explorer to List View in Windows 10

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I have tried some thing and it seems to work.

Go to the folder that you want, click on View, click on Preview pane then on List.

Then shut down File Explorer and restart.

Get back in and pick the folder in File Explorer and it should be in list view.

This works on each folder by it self. Other folders can be different.

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I appreciate the answer. I’ve done that about 10,000 times. Yes it may work the next time, but then for reasons I don’t understand, I’ll open up another folder or come back to that folder later and it will be back to the details view. It is very irritating. I have been using Microsoft OS since the DOS days. I’ve seen this problem for decades. I work at a computer all day and have been wasting my time on this for a long time. 🙁

Thanks anyway. It was kind of you to try to help.

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Set Default Folder When Opening Explorer in Windows 10

How to change from Quick Access to This PC

After upgrading to Windows 10 recently, I noticed that whenever I opened Explorer, it would always show me Quick Access. I like the new Quick Access feature, but I preferred to have Explorer open to This PC instead.

For me, being able to access the different drives on the computer and my network devices was far more important than accessing frequently used folders or recently opened files. It’s a useful feature, but I don’t mind having to click once to access it.

In this post, I’ll show you how to change the default folder from Quick Access to This PC when opening Explorer. In addition, I’ll also show you a trick whereby you can set any folder to be the default folder when opening Explorer in Windows 10.

Set Default Folder to This PC

To change the setting, open Explorer, click on File and then click on Change folder and search options.

In the dialog that pops up, you should already be on the General tab. At the very top, you’ll see Open File Explorer to where you can select from This PC and Quick Access.

Just pick whichever folder you prefer and you’re good to go! Now when you open Explorer, you should see it open to This PC selected instead of Quick Access.

If you need to do this on many machines in a corporate environment, you’ll be happy to know that there is a registry entry that controls this setting also. Just navigate to the following key:

On the right hand side, look for a DWORD key named Launch To. 1 means This PC and 2 means Quick Access.

Finally, let’s talk about how we can configure Explorer to open up to any folder as the default folder.

Set Any Folder as Default for Explorer

Since there really isn’t any official way to do this, we have to kind of hack Windows to get it to do what we want. I’ve tested it out and the process seems to work just fine. To get started, find your folder and create a shortcut to the folder on your desktop.

For example, if I wanted to use the Pictures folder as my default folder, I would right-click on it, choose Send to and then click on Desktop (create shortcut). Next, we need to copy that shortcut into a special location in Windows. First, let’s open Explorer and go to that special location. Just copy and paste the following path into the address bar in another Explorer window:

Make sure to press Enter after you paste the path into Explorer. Depending on what else is pinned to your taskbar, you might see shortcuts to several programs here, but you should always see a File Explorer shortcut.

Now go ahead and drag the shortcut that we just created from your desktop into the special folder you have open in Explorer. Now we have to do one last thing. Go ahead and delete the File Explorer shortcut and rename the Pictures Shortcut to File Explorer. If you chose a different folder than Pictures, then change whatever the name of that shortcut is to File Explorer.

That’s about it! Now open File explorer from your taskbar and you should be viewing the contents of whichever folder you chose to be the default folder.

It’s worth noting that this little trick will only work when you click on the Explorer icon on your taskbar. If you open Explorer by double-clicking on This PC on the desktop or by clicking on Start and then File Explorer, you’ll either see This PC or Quick Access, depending on which option is chosen in the settings.

If you want to undo what we just did above, all you have to do is right-click on Explorer in the taskbar and choose Unpin from taskbar. After that, just drag the This PC icon from your desktop and drop it onto the taskbar again. This will create a new Explorer shortcut and it’ll work normally.

Pin Folders to Quick Access

If you don’t like any of the two options above, you do have one other choice in Windows 10. You could use the new pinned folders feature that is associated with Quick Access. When you open Explorer, you’ll see a pin icon next to several folders under Quick Access.

The Desktop, Downloads, Documents, Pictures, This PC and Music folders are pinned by default in Windows 10. If you want to remove any of them, just right-click and choose Unpin from Quick Access.

However, if you want one click access to any folder on your computer, navigate to that folder, then right-click on Quick Access and choose Pin current folder to Quick Access.

As you can see, this is how I pinned the Program Files folder to my Quick Access section. Using this method, you don’t have to resort to any hacks and you can also quickly access any folder on your system with two clicks.

Lastly, you can also get to that pinned folder quickly by simply right-clicking on the File Explorer icon in your taskbar and choosing your pinned folder, which will show up in the jumplist.

So in summary, if you want to change the default folder system-wide, you can only pick between This PC and Quick Access. If you use the second method involving the shortcut hack, then you have to use the shortcut from the taskbar.

Lastly, if you just need quick access to a folder, try using the pin to Quick Access option as that will also be system-wide and will remain in the left-hand side even as you browse through other folders. If you have any questions, post a comment. Enjoy!

Founder of Online Tech Tips and managing editor. He began blogging in 2007 and quit his job in 2010 to blog full-time. He has over 15 years of industry experience in IT and holds several technical certifications. Read Aseem’s Full Bio

Change Windows 10 File Explorer Default View

File Explorer is a “Graphical User Interface” which is mostly known as GUI among IT Professionals. GUI is an interface that everything looks smooth. If you use the core Windows Operating System, you will not be able to see the File Explorer by default. You have to bring it by Command Prompt or CMD. Here, we are going to show you, how to change Windows 10 File Explorer default view?

Change Windows 10 File Explorer Default View

Whenever you open up the File Explorer on Windows 10 so you will see the default view. Windows 10 File Explorer default View is like this that when you open, it will show you the “Frequent Folder” with “Recent Folder”. The picture, movies, documents, and other materials that you have opened them will be shown to you. In Windows 8 this feature was not developed on the other hand it has improved in Windows 10. Recent File will help to have quick access to the files which you have recently used them. There may be some users that don’t like while opening the file explorer they see the recent files.

They prefer to have quick access to the Drives and Folders, not to the recent files. For this task, we are here to help you how to change the default view of file explorer in Windows 10.

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Change File Explorer View

You can change the File Explorer view in three miscellaneous ways.

Control Panel Method

Go to Control Panel> File Explorer Options. A new window will pop up, and you can change the view from “Quick Access” to “This PC”. Now when you open up Windows 10 File Explorer, you will not see the recent files and folders.

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Change File Explorer from Quick Access to This PC

Folder Option Method

First you have to open the File Explorer then go to view tab. From the right-hand side, click on Folder Option. Again, you will see the same windows that you will be able to change the default view from here as well.

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Windows 10 Folder Options

Quick Access Method

The easiest way and quick way is this method. Just open up the Windows 10 File Explorer then scroll up till you get Quick Access. Right-click on the Quick Access then choose Options.

Quick Access Method

From every way you go, you will see the same first screenshot which I have used in this article. Just change it to This PC.

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