After a little searching, I'm thinking that Explorer++ looks like a good alternative. Free, seems to look/work like Windows Explorer (which I like), only 1067 kb, tabs. No installation necessary, just run it.
http://www.explorerplusplus.com/home
That looks good, but it is tabbed, rather than dual paned, as I prefer.
EDIT: Actually triple paned, if you count the folder tree.
I have finally found what could somewhat be considered a "fix" to the jumping folders in Windows Explorer. There is a free and open source project at Sourceforge called Classic Shell. It allows you to get back the classic start menu as used in XP and it also allows you to enable some old XP like behavior in Windows Explorer. However, the exciting thing is that the author has figured out how to stop the jumping behavior. It flat out works, no registry tweaking necessary and I've seen no other odd behavior.
Classic Shell | Get Classic Shell at SourceForge.net
So what if you want to fix the jumping behavior but not lose the Windows 7 style start menu? Install the Classic Shell, open MSConfig and then uncheck the entry in the Startup tab so that the Classic Start Menu doesn't load at boot. Log off, log back on, and you are in business. The fix for the jumping behavior in Windows Explorer works even if you don't use the classic start menu.
The changes to incorporate this fix were added between version 1.0.0 and the previous version. Since the project is open source, anyone who is proficient with code should be able to find out what the author did to fix this (I'm not one of those people).
The reason the folders jump to subfolders is because there is no way to know you do not want a subfolder, and no way to manually stop the tree from unfolding until it shows all sub-folders since you are dragging files to copy holding the left-click.
The solution here is to patiently wait the few seconds until all folders unfold before letting go of the left click dragging operation.
Even if someone could come up with a reg fix or app, how would they know when to stop the folder tree from expanding since you might want a deeper subfolder to copy into?
That's not what we are talking about. We are talking about a folder in the left pane jumping to the bottom of the screen when double clicked and expanded. No dragging and dropping involved. Also, if you double click on a folder in the right pane to expand it, its counterpart in the left pane jumps to the bottom. We just want the Windows Explorer tree to work like it used to in XP.
See the links in my previous post a few weeks ago for an in depth discussion of the bug:
Strange folder behavior in left pane of Windows Explorer
W7 Jumping To Bottom Browser When clicking on Folders
Windows explorer tree view expands at the bottom, not at the top as it used to be
One of those links has a video of the problem and frankly, I am confused.
In the video the guy is constantly clicking on folders in the left pane, most of the time the folders just simply unfold to show subfolders, but sometimes, there is no space, so the whole tree moves vertically. A couple of times the tree moved down, so that what one sees in the left pane actually starts from the top of list, so effectively, the folder the guy was clicking on turns out being somewhere in the bottom.
I tried to reproduce the problem by clicking on all kinds of folders in the left pane and I ran out of patience before any jumping has occurred. I don't see any problem.
I have XP on an old laptop and I went out and compared. I saw exactly the same thing: If I click on the + (or triangle in 7) the folder will unfold to show subfolders. If the subfolder list is too long, then the unfolding folder will jump to the top of the pane. I have observed that both in XP and 7.
So, maybe there is a bug in that jumping and sometimes it might jump the wrong way, but I guess I am not clicking on that left pane often enough to see it and get annoyed.
I think the problem only occurs when the number folders in the left pane is long enough that it makes the scroll bar appear. If the number of folders visible is not long enough to scroll, I think you don't the the behavior. This may be why you are having trouble duplicating the issue.One of those links has a video of the problem and frankly, I am confused.
In the video the guy is constantly clicking on folders in the left pane, most of the time the folders just simply unfold to show subfolders, but sometimes, there is no space, so the whole tree moves vertically. A couple of times the tree moved down, so that what one sees in the left pane actually starts from the top of list, so effectively, the folder the guy was clicking on turns out being somewhere in the bottom.
I tried to reproduce the problem by clicking on all kinds of folders in the left pane and I ran out of patience before any jumping has occurred. I don't see any problem.
I have XP on an old laptop and I went out and compared. I saw exactly the same thing: If I click on the + (or triangle in 7) the folder will unfold to show subfolders. If the subfolder list is too long, then the unfolding folder will jump to the top of the pane. I have observed that both in XP and 7.
So, maybe there is a bug in that jumping and sometimes it might jump the wrong way, but I guess I am not clicking on that left pane often enough to see it and get annoyed
From the developer's comments in the code regarding the fix:
Some of the guys at Technet are trying to get this passed on to the appropriate people at MS so maybe we can get this fixed once and for all.HACK! there is a bug in Win7 Explorer and when the selected folder is expanded for the first time it sends TVM_ENSUREVISIBLE for the root tree item. This auses the navigation pane to scroll up. To work around the bug we ignore TVM_ENSUREVISIBLE if it tries to show the root item and it is not selected
I never allow a computer I use to sleep or hibernate. It is either on or off, and I never turn it off. I do restart about every other day.
I'm the same way. I started doing this because the person that guided me on my first self-built computer, said that for a harddrive to stop and start caused more stress and wear on it than continous running, due to thickening of lubricant when cold, and thinning when hot, plus the torque changes. I'm not sure how much truth there is in this, but it made sense to me at the time, and it is difficult to change old habits.
You'll get arguments and disagreements either way. The counter argument is that a spinning disk is wearing the bearings and it will lead to failure more quickly. Until someone does a controlled study as to which is better, do whatever you feel is best for your situation.
Myself, I let my drives power down. I'm not sold on always on being better, so I'd rather have the power savings. And I let my computer go to sleep automatically after a certain time period. Never had any problems and again, I like the power savings since there is no reason to have it sitting there idle wasting power.
Anyway, why did this come up? Item #1 on the OP's complaints? I've never seen any issues after resuming from sleep. I reboot my computer once a week unless something else has made me reboot in the mean time.
Quote