Windows Explorer Auto Arrange - Disable

demogo said:

Hmmm. This is one of my biggest pet peeves with Win 7.

I use folders on my desktop to organize my contents and have done so for a long time, only to find that feature missing with Win 7.

I've followed your instructions to the letter and there doesn't seem to be any change at all to the Windows behavior. Auto arrange still seems to be very much active, unfortunately.

Any ideas of things to try? My account has admin privileges, the registry merges happened just as expected, I had the computer window open, I logged out when I was supposed to -- and no changes in behavior at all.

I even undid it with your 2nd step and then tried it all again, this time restarting the computer instead of logging out. Nada.

Hello Demogo, and welcome to Seven Forums.

What is the folder location that you are testing this in?

You will not be able to disable Auto Arrange in any of the Library folder locations.

Demogo,

I'm not sure why it may not be working for you. Triple check through the steps to make sure that they're followed exactly step by step and that all explorer windows are closed until you get to step 7. At step 7, you must open the Computer window directly from the Start Menu and not navigate to it.

Hey Brink, thanks a lot for your fix!

I seem to have a small problem though, I can disable auto arrange in every folder, but by default it's still enabled. So I have to disable it every time I want to move some files freely in a new folder, which is a real pain since I use a lot of subfolders to organize my files. Is there any way to fix that, a line to fix somewhere in the reg to make it permanent? I'm on a 7 home 64 bits version, if that could be the problem? Maybe folder types numbers are different?

Edit: seems it was because I was changing the folders to medium icons and applying to all folders in the folder options. It then deletes the {5C4F28B5-F869-4E84-8E60-F11DB97C5CC7} line under shell and starts new bags instead with different numbers... weird.

Also I found another helpful link saying 43000000 is to turn off auto arrange, while 43000001 is to keep it enabled. : http://www.msfn.org/board/topic/1429...-folder-views/ -- what do you think?

I'm gonna keep looking (it's all new to me), but it might be a good idea to update your tutorial by pointing out changing the folder options/switching to different icons may have an effect on the fix. :)

Hello Paddyng, and welcome to Seven Forums.

Yeah, that's one of the quirks of disabling Auto Arrange in Windows Explorer.

You can do this instead from the NOTE box at the top of tutorial to have it arranged how you had it again. There's no need to disable it again. :)

   Note

When you disable auto arrange and either move or rename a folder, it will refresh and auto arrange the files in that specific moved or renamed folder only after each time you move or rename it. Auto arrange is still disabled for that moved or renamed folder, but you will have to arrange the files back to whatever non-auto arranged order you like after moving or renaming the folder.

Hello Hamilton, and welcome to Seven Forums.

It will work on the other internal HDD.

The external is questionable since folder views are not suppose to be remembered for removable devices. However, it works just fine for me on a USB flash drive, and remembers how I have them arranged even when I unplug it and plug it back in later. It probably will work for you as well.

Hope this helps,
Shawn

You're most welcome. Please let us know how it works for you with your external HDD. :)