Windows 7: Auto-arrange - solved?

Hey, guys

This just came to my attention: How to Disable Full Row Select in Explorer in Windows 7? - The Winhelponline Blog
It is a hack to disable the full-row selection in Explorer. As a side effect it also adds the option to disable the auto-arrange in "icon" mode. See the attached screenshot. Thanks to tuxplorer for sending me the link and pointing the auto-arrange side effect.

Basically this hack forces Explorer to use the old "SysListVew32" control instead of the new "DirectUIHWND" control, so most features start behaving like in Vista (my favorite - the blue sort header is back instead of the 7's white header, also the gap between the header and the first file is gone).

BTW, there is a typo in the instructions. They say to add a key to Shell\Bags\AllFolders, but it is actually Shell\Bags\AllFolders\Shell. Also this hack only affects the generic folders, not special folders like Music or Videos.

I'm guessing a different GUID is needed for each special folder type. I'm hoping somebody in this forum who is more familiar with the registry hacks can figure it out for all folders and prepare a better tutorial. Brink? You know you want to

Hello Ivo,

I have not tried this in Windows 7 yet, but I image that will work in it just as well.

Select Files - Disable or Enable Full Row Select - Vista Forums

UPDATE:
Vista method does not work in Windows 7.

No, that's the thing. The Vista method doesn't work on 7. But that's not the point. I'm saying that the proposed "full row" solution also brings back the option to disable "auto arrange". This is the top feature request for Classic Shell. Unfortunately this is not something that can be done through a shell extension. The hack I linked to is the first viable solution I've seen.

Personally, I don't care for auto-arrange. I'm happy with a Details view everywhere. But I've seen so many posts asking for this, so I thought I'd share.

Edit. Maybe after applying this hack, the Vista way of controlling full-row select will work too. So this way you can control both auto-arrange and full-row independently. I'm just speculating, haven't tried this myself.

I'll have to do some testing on this later as well to see if it will also disable the auto arrange.

Ivo,

Yep, I tested it with the Vista option above to disable full row select, and it made no difference in auto arrange with it. Only the Windows 7 way will work.

It worked perfectly! Thank you! I was so upset that I was forced to use auto arrange after upgrading to 7 from Vista. I work with large amount of photographic files that I like to move to different areas of the explorer window. I might have 500 files arranged into dozens of groups in a folder. Now 7 feels less dumbed down!

Also confirming the fix in the first post fixed the auto arrange of icons in folders for Windows 7 wowrks!

Thankyou so much. (I have not tried the vista fix for windows 7, but it seems from the other posters it doesn't work).

So, there is no chance to disable auto arrange folders in Windows Explorer, yet ?

have a look HERE

Thanks, but nothing new.
I wanna arrange the folders in the order i want,in explorer.
For example i have 5 folders : A / B / C / D / and E
I wanna keept them like : C / B / A / E and D
That's not possible with the trick from that link, but thanks, anyway.
Drag and drop doesen't work.