1. Close all open Explorer windows
2. Open Regedit and Task Manager
3. In Task Manager, locate the Windows Explorer process, right-click and End task
4. In Regedit, navigate to, export, and then delete the two keys above.
5. In Task Manager, click File -> Run New Task -> «explorer.exe» to restart the Shell.

Let’s see if that does it.

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I appreciate your help but I decided not to try risking making changes to the Registry (even with a backup) because I am afraid it might impact the document, music and video folder settings which are fine as they are.

If you will allow me to vent a little (and none of it is directed at you, because you have been EXTREMELY helpful). The fact is I find Windows 10 very frustrating overall because it is counter intuitive with many annoyances. It may be feature rich, but it is feature rich for the sake of being feature rich. This is a brand new desktop PC which I got a few months ago with a pretty decent configuration (i7 4790, 4GB video memory and 16GB RAM; Windows 10 pre-loaded). IMHO Windows 10 was not market-ready to begin with and is basically a beta based on my experience. I am considering buying Windows 7 professional and scrap the Windows 10 or I might just install a new system SSD with Windows 7. Virtually 90% of my professional work is done on the PC and I can’t problem-solve every time something is not up to snuff. Currently the biggest problem I experience is that Windows 10 keeps freezing, and every now and then after a few hours of use my internet gets disconnected. I know it has to do with this PC (possibly Windows 10 I think) because my older PC is hooked into the same ISP connection and it works just fine.

This might be a pipe dream on my part, but there is still one thing you help me with i.e. is there any way to customize the File Explorer ribbon i.e.:

1. It would be great if I can get the «New Folder» (under Home) icon to show up in the «View» Menu

2. Make the «View» Menu to show by default instead of having to click on it every time. Actually some of the menus could have been combined e.g. the Home and View menus because there is so much empty space on the File Explorer ribbon.

Thanks once again your help is deeply appreciated, and thanks for «listening».

How to set a default Folder View for all folders in Windows 10

In Windows File Explorer, you might have noticed the different folder layout settings for different folders. Some of the folders have smaller icons while some puts on a large icons view layout. There are several folder layouts available in Windows 10/8/7 which you can choose from, for any folder. While Windows has set these defaults based on the nature of the files in the folder, if you wish, you can set a default Folder View for all folders. In this post, we will how to set & apply the same view settings of the current folder, as the default, for all other folders on your PC.

What are Folder Templates

Before rolling on to change the folder’s view settings, let’s take a look at how folder templates work. You might have noticed that folders that contain pictures have a different view layout than that which contains videos or documents. This is the folder optimization technique in play which chooses one of the five templates for any folder based on the content that is stored in it. These templates are:

• General Items – Applies to any folder that contains a mixed combination of files and other sub-folders.
• Documents – Applies to the folders that contain documents (Word files, text files, etc.)
• Pictures – Applies to the folders that contain image files (.jpg, .png files, etc.)
• Music – Applies to all such folders which contain music files (.mp3, .wav, etc.)
• Videos – Applies to any folder that contains just video items (.mp4, .avi, etc.)

Whenever you create a new folder and put some files in it, Windows does its best to decide the folder template based on the content. If you’re storing mixed type of files in any folder, Windows automatically assigns General Items as the folder template. If you want to view any folder’s template, right-click the folder icon and open its Properties window. In here, navigate to the Customize tab where you can see the correct template optimized for the folder in question.

Set a default Folder View for all folders

Now that we are clear on basics, let’s roll over to the task at hand. You can apply a folder’s view settings to only those folders which are optimized for the same folder template type. Once the view layout is generalized for a folder template type (say, Music), every time you change the layout of file icons (from tile icons to large icons), the same will be reflected in other folders as well that are optimized for Music template. Now, you can follow the below steps to apply the folder view settings across a folder template type:

1. Open File Explorer by using key combination Windows Key + E and navigate to the folder you want to use as a source for view layout settings.

2. Navigate to the View tab in ribbon bar on the top and change the settings per your wish. You can change the layout and choose the folder details to display, add extra panes, adjust column width, etc.

3. Once done with the changes, click Options to open Folder Options window.

4. Navigate to View tab in Folder Options window.

5. Click/Tap on Apply to Folders button.

6. Click/Tap Yes on the confirmation window that pops up.

7. Click/Tap OK on the Folder Options window to save the settings.

That is it. You have just generalized the view settings for a particular folder template type across the OS. Hope this works for you.

Windows explorer view all folders

Globally Set Explorer Folder Views

Compatible with Windows 7, Windows 8, and Windows 10.

Les Ferch, lesferch@gmail.com
GitHub repository created 2021-03-26, last updated 2021-04-16

This tool provides an easy way to globally set Windows Explorer folder views. For example, if you want Details view with a particular selection of column headings enabled across all folders, then this tool will do that for you.

The tool is comprised of two files: WinSetView.hta (HTML GUI with VBScript code) and WinSetView.ps1 (Powershell command line script).

Double-click WinSetView.hta to open the GUI. When you click Submit, the hta/vbs script will pass your choices as parameters to WinSetView.ps1, which will make the changes and then restart Explorer.

Each option, and related Explorer background information, is detailed below, but if you just want to get to it, the dialog is pretty much self-explanatory. For best results, close all open applications before running this tool. Open applications can prevent open/save dialog views from being updated.

All changes made by this tool are per-user within the HKEY_CURRENT_USER hive in the registry. No machine settings are touched and no elevated privileges are required. On each run, the tool makes a unique backup file of the affected registry values. A restore option is provided allowing you to rollback to any of these backups. There’s also an option to completely reset all Explorer views to Windows default values.

Language Dropdown Menu

This allows you to select an interface language for WinSetView. See Language Support section below for details. This option does NOT change the Windows language.

Reset Views to Windows Defaults

This option clears the registry keys that hold Explorer views and restarts Explorer, causing all folder views to revert to Windows defaults.

View Radio Buttons:

For your global Explorer view, you can select one of: Details, List, Tiles, Content, Small Icons, Medium Icons, Large Icons

Your selection will apply to all folders except «This PC» and «Network».

This option turns off grouping in all folder views. This is most often desired for the Downloads folder which has grouping by date enabled by default.

Make All Folders Generic

This option disables «Folder Type Discovery». That’s the windows feature that automatically changes a folder’s view based on its contents. If you want your folder views to change with content, don’t check this item. If you want a consistent view across all folders, regardless of content, check this option. This option also makes the Documents, Music, Pictures, and Videos folders generic. Those four folder will retain their special icons, but they will behave like a generic folder (i.e. column headings in Details view will be generic). This option has no effect on the Downloads folder.

Keep «Apply to Folders» Views

This option retains any folder views that have been saved using Explorer’s Apply to Folders button. This is a very effective method to have some customization in addition to a global view setting.

If you want this extra level of view customization, be sure to use the Apply to Folders button in Explorer for each folder type view you want to set. That is, in Explorer, set your desired view for Downloads, then go to View, Options, Change folder and search options, View tab, and click Apply to Folders. Repeat those steps for Documents, Music, Pictures, and Videos. All of those views will then take precedence over any global folder view set with WinSetView, as long as Keep «Apply to Folders» Views is checked and Make All Folders Generic is unchecked.

If Make All Folders Generic is also checked, only the Downloads folder will get its view from any view saved via Explorer’s Apply to Folders button.

Set Global Column Headings

Check this box if you want to control which column headings are enabled globally for Details view. Uncheck it if you want Windows default column headings. The column heading order is shown in the text box, using the heading names, as they are stored in the registry. To control the order, uncheck all column headings and then check them in the order you want them to appear left to right.

Seventeen of Explorer’s column headings are provided (I can add more on request). There are many more heading choices in Explorer, but these are the ones that are most likely to be applicable globally. Some of them appear redundant, but they’re all different in some way. Each heading is explained below:

Date Modified: The last date/time the file was updated on this file system.
Date Created: This is the date/time the file was initially written to storage.
Date accessed: Date file was last opened (rarely accurate due to deferred updates).

General purpose headings:

Size: The file size in KB
Attributes: File attributes such as Archive[A], Hidden[H], System[S], Read-only[R]
File Version: Applicable to files that have a version header, such as .exe files
Owner: File owner in computer\userid format

File type headings:

Item type: The file’s type based on file extension. Example: MPEG Layer 3
Type: Usually same as File type, but may show associated app name in search results.
Perceived type: File category. Examples: Audio, Video
Kind: Similar to Perceived type. Examples: Music, Video
Content type: Essentially Perceived type + Item type. Example: audio/mpeg
File extension: Example: .mp3 (handy for sorting if you don’t need a type field)

The File extension column heading is not available on Windows 7.

Path headings (useful in search results):

Folder name: The folder name only. Example: Ghibli
Folder path: Full path to the folder. Example: C:\Movies\Ghibli
Folder: Folder name followed by preceding path. Example: Ghibli (C:\Movies)
Path: Full path to the file. Example: C:\Movies\Ghibli\Ponyo.mkv

Name and Path Column Widths

The first number sets the width of the name column (first column) in Details view. The second number Sets the width of any path columns enabled in Details view.
The value is specified in ems. 1 em ≈ 1 char
Em size is relative to screen scaling. For example (at 96 dpi):
1 em at 100% = 8 pixels
1 em at 125% = 10 pixels
1 em at 150% = 12 pixels
Explorer uses ems internally for all its default column widths. This keeps the amount of text displayed in each column constant as screen scaling is changed.

Set views for «This PC» and «Network»

If this option is checked, the tool will set your chosen view settings for «This PC» and «Network». If the option is unchecked, these virtual folders will retain the Windows default of Tiles and group by category. Under this checkbox, you can select the desired view for «This PC» and «Network» and choose to disable or keep grouping.

This button executes the Powershell script which will apply the selected options to the registry and restart Explorer. How it works this magic is explained further below.

Last Run Settings

This button will be grayed out on first run. The next time you run the tool, your selected options from the previous run will load automatically. If you then make one or more changes to the selections, and want to get back to what you picked on last run, just click the Last Run Settings button.

Clicking this button will return the interface to the default choices baked into the code.

Restore from Backup

This button will be grayed out on first run. Each time you click Submit, the Powershell script makes a backup of the user’s Explorer view registry keys to a date-time-named file. The Restore from Backup button will bring up a dialog to let you pick a backup file to restore. Since it’s a standard Explorer dialog, you can use the same interface to delete any unwanted backups by selecting them and right-clicking to get a Delete option.

Folder views in Windows Explorer are both flexible and frustrating. Many users have reported their view settings getting inexplicitly reverted back to Windows defaults, especially as it concerns the Downloads folder. However, some of these frustrations may be due to a misunderstanding of how the views work.

Explorer’s Many Views

The Downloads folder, for example, has at least four different views. Those four views are: 1) This PC, Downloads, 2) C:\Users\Username\Downloads, 3) This PC, Downloads via an Open or Save dialog, and 4) C:\Users\Username\Downloads via an Open or Save dialog. Frequently, a user will set one of these views and then encounter one of the other views and get angry that their view settings «didn’t stick».

Apply to Folders Explained

Another confusion is over the Apply to Folders button. This can be found in View, Options, Change folder and search options, View tab. Many users interpret this button to mean «Apply to ALL folders». That’s not what it means. It actually means «Apply to all folders that are the same type as the current folder». This button can be used to set all views of the Downloads folder the same, so it is very useful, but Explorer provides no option to set all folders and virtual folders to one global view.

Without WinSetView, you can get closer to a global view by setting a generic folder, such as C:\, to your desired views and then use the Apply to Folders button to set all other generic folders the same. But, by default, there are many folders that are not generic folders. To get even closer to a global view, you can make the Apply to Folders button apply to more folders by setting a registry value that tells Explorer to treat «all folders» as «Generic». That registry value is:

Note: You can substitute «Generic» with «NotSpecified» and get the same result.

Note: This tool makes this registry entry for you (if desired). It is only shown here for educational purposes.

With that value set, changing the view for say, C:\, and then clicking the Apply to Folders button will also change the view for Documents, Music, Pictures, and Videos, but not Downloads. Explorer really likes to keep the view for Downloads separate from all other folders.

Apply to Folders «Bug»

Whenever you use the Apply to Folders button, on any generic folder, such as C:\, your views for «This PC» and «Network» will revert back to Windows defaults. If you always leave «This PC» and «Network» at their default views, this is not an issue, but if you have changed either view and want to keep it changed, this is a nuisance.

There is a workaround. Any folder that is open when Apply to Folders is used, will not have it’s view changed. So, to «protect» your custom views for «This PC» and «Network», be sure to have separate windows open to each of those views when you use the Apply to Folders button.

Automatic Folder Type Discovery

By default, Explorer has automatic folder type discovery enabled. This means Explorer will automatically change the view of a folder based on its contents. People generally love or hate this feature. If you’re reading this, you probably fall into the latter camp. The same «FolderType»=»Generic» registry entry, described above, also disables automatic folder discovery. This option is applied by the tool when you select the Make All Folders Generic option.

How is this better than Explorer’s «Apply to Folders»?

That option only applies your changes to folders of the same type. Explorer has many folder types, (e.g. Downloads, Pictures, Search Results, etc.), requiring you to set your desired view options repeatedly. Additionally, many users encounter situations where their selected options are reverted back to Windows defaults for no obvious reason. This tool allows you to make quick global changes to your view settings that will not unexpectedly change.

Can I use Explorer’s «Apply to Folders» option in combination with this tool?

Yes. See the section above that describes the Keep «Apply to Folders» Views feature.

Does this tool require administrative privileges?

No. This tool creates a copy of the Windows folder view defaults, edits that copy, and applies it to the current user. The changes do not affect other users and are only part of the current user’s profile.

Is there an Undo?

Yes, as described under «Restore from Backup» above, the tool creates a backup every run that can be restored at any time. You can also revert the Explorer views to Windows defaults at any time.

How does this tool work?

To answer that question, let’s first look at how Explorer selects the views for your folders.

When a folder is opened, Explorer looks for existing view settings in the BagMRU/Bags keys:

If no settings exist there, it then checks the Streams\Defaults key for any default settings that have been applied using the Apply to Folders button:

If the view settings are not in the Streams\Defaults key, it checks the FolderTypes key in HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE for the default view settings for the folder type that was just opened and applies those settings:

Explorer then saves the settings in an entry in the user’s BagMRU/Bags keys that will be updated whenever the user changes the view for that folder.

Fortunately for us, Explorer will also look for the FolderTypes key in HKEY_CURRENT_USER and, if it exists, use that instead of the one in HKLM:

This provides an opportunity to set our desired default settings without touching the base defaults for the machine and all other users (and not requiring admin privileges).

Note: Default views for all folders except «This PC» and «Network» can be found in the FolderTypes key.

How This Tool Works:

Here’s an overview of the steps the Powershell script performs to set Explorer views as per the selected options:

1. Backup the existing user’s registry keys that hold Explorer views
2. Delete those keys (except Streams/Defaults if Keep «Apply to Folders» Views is checked).
3. Set any direct registry entries, such as Show File Extensions and Make All Folders Generic, for the current user.
4. If custom «This PC» and «Network» views have been selected, create BagMRU/Bags entries for those views.
5. Export HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE FolderTypes key to a file.
6. Use Replace with regular expresions to change defaults in exported file as per user’s selections.
7. Import edited FolderTypes key file to HKEY_CURRENT_USER.
8. Restart Explorer.

Any language that is displayed left to right, and can be represented with UTF-8 encoding, should work. The WinSetView.HTA script looks for a Language folder in the same location as the HTA. If none is found, it will display English using text built into the script. If it finds a language folder, it will read the list of .txt files found there to create a language dropdown menu. Several example language files are included. The file English.txt should be used as a template to create a new language file.

Contributors are needed to correct the sample language files (other than English) since most of the text was translated from English using Google Translate. The folder view radio buttons and the column heading checkbox labels are already correct in the samples because those were copied from Windows running in those languages. The other labels, buttons, and help text probably have many errors. If you can help correct a language file or add a new one, that would be most appreciated. I look forward to seeing some Asian language files as well.

Please see the Acknowledgment section for any language files that have been hand-corrected.

The first line in the file specifies the title displayed in the dialog title bar.

The next set of lines represent the radio button and checkbox labels, one per line with no blank lines. Please note that the second row of radio buttons in the dialog are not included in the language file because they have the same labels as the first row.

This is followed by a <> separator and the title for the Help dialog and then another <> separator followed by the Help dialog text.

Save the text file as type UTF-8. UTF-8 with BOM (signature) is also fine. The file can have any name as long as it has a .txt extension, but it makes sense to give the file a name that matches its language selection in Windows. For example: Deutsch (Deutschland).txt

Thanks to Keith Miller at TenForums.com for providing the FolderTypes approach to setting default views.

Thanks to my son Brian for helping me debug and clean up my HTML code. If you use Spotify on Android, please check out his Trimify app on the Google Play store.

Thanks to Patrick Hannemann for providing the Deutsch (Deutschland) (German) language file.

Thanks to Vladimir Bondarev for providing the Pусский (Russian) language file.

Thanks to my daughter Dana for providing the 日本語 (Japanese) language file. The translation may be rough in places, as she is very new to the language. Please gently provide corrections. Thank you.

Thanks to my cat Puddles for keeping me company while I worked on this.