Solved Windows Explorer right pane does not match left folder

Hello,

I just noticed Win Explorer does not refresh the right pane as I navigate up/down a list of folders via arrow keys in the left pane. It used to make rapid visual read of folder contents possible. Can that feature be switched back on?

I've seen this reported elsewhere few years ago but I cannot find it on this site.

Hello Nick,

Do you mean to have the navigation pane automatically expand to the current folder?

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/1014-navigation-pane-automatically-expand-current-folder.html

Brink, thanks for your swift response.

For some reason I can't make that solution work. Bear in mind the function I am after is what I thought was a Win XP thing. It may be ancient history now, if it existed at all -- the mind plays tricks. I just migrated to Win 7 64 (after a bad virus chewed my OS late last year ;\

So I have no Win XP box to reassure myself with. Still, I may be wrong but I believe the right pane always showed the content of the highlighted folder in the left pane regardless of how focus got there, mouse click, arrow key, meteor strike. I really liked the arrow key because of the ultra-low motor-coord demand in moving up and down (!). I was rarely able to arrange a meteor.

I followed your instructions and even then the right pane will only reveal the left pane folder if I mouse into that folder and click. (I'm averse to that if a keyboard action will suffice!) I also did not see any logical effect via Ctrl-Shift-E: the displayed files or folders bore no relation to the left-pane folder high-lighted. (I do see I can right click a left-pane folder with the +sign to expand its content in the left pane. That is familiar to me.)

As I said, maybe I misremembered the other Win XP function. I will know for sure after I cruelly and for sentimental reasons repair the XP laptop.

Hmm, ok. Please go ahead and post a screenshot showing this to see if it may help some more.

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/9733-screenshots-files-upload-post-seven-forums.html

Are you saying, that when you click on a folder in the left (navigation) pane, the contents of that folder don't appear in the right (main) pane?

If you use the keyboard to navigate in the left pane, the right pane will only show the contents of the highlighted folder if you use the Spacebar or Enter key.

Lechnerus, the Spacebar or Enter key functionality works. But I thought in Win XP it showed folder contents even just by using the arrow keys to highlight in the left pane, with no need of any extra key stroke.
But if necessary I can get used to the extra keystroke I guess.

Brink, here are some screen shots:
01 shows the option selected;
02 shows after I click on "Local Drive D"
03 shows previous main display unchanged after I navigate by keyboard all the way to a far flung instance of "My Pictures" somewhere on Drive E I believe.
That's quite counter-intuitive.

Nick,

Yep, it's has Peter posted. Only if you click on the folder in the navigation pane will it instantly show it's contents.

XP is different to W7

Nick Sergeant said:

Lechnerus, the Spacebar or Enter key functionality works. But I thought in Win XP it showed folder contents even just by using the arrow keys to highlight in the left pane, with no need of any extra key stroke.

Click to expand...

You don't need the 'c' in my user name.

In XP, it works as you have posted.
If you use the keyboard to navigate in the left pane, the right pane will show the contents of the highlighted folder.

I found a couple of locations that didn't do this though.

Okay, I'll stop looking for Win XP behaviour where it can't be found.

Thanks to you both for checking this out with me.

Different File Manager

If you don't like the way Windows Explorer works you could try a different file manager.

There are quite a few free file managers for Windows.

I use FreeCommander 2009.02b when I want to anything other than basic file management.

You could also look through the programs on this site:
File & Disk Management Downloads - Filepuma.com

Thanks, lehnerus, I've heard about some freeware alternatives but forgot to note the links.

I'll give your suggestion a try.

Additional File Manager Lists

Here are a couple of other file manager lists:
The Best Alternative File Managers for Windows, Mac, and Linux
Best Free File Manager

It's a known bug of Windows Explorer (that MS has no intention to fix) introduced in the greatly flawed Explorer in Vista an latter versions.
The workaround, other than throwing the whole Explorer away, is to install Classic Shell that contains a vast number of bugfixes and improvements to Explorer (as well as the start menu and IE).
The exact setting that corrects this is in this screen:

Thanks, Alejandro, I might give Classic Shell a try.

Lehnerus, I have tried out FreeCommander XE. I haven't gotten used to it yet but will see how it goes.

Nick Sergeant said:

Lehnerus, I have tried out FreeCommander XE. I haven't gotten used to it yet but will see how it goes.

Click to expand...

You should read through the docs, if you have time.

Apart from twin pane and tabbed GUI, FreeCommander has a couple of nice tools:

• md5 creation and validation
• Mass Rename Tool
• Compare files and folders