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aleemjumaFlag for United States of America

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How to stop WinXP from displaying files in groups by default

Summary:
Every time I explore a disc in my CD/DVD drive Windows sees fit to display the files in groups (Context -> Arrange Icons By -> [x] Show in Groups). I want to disable this default, or rather, set it not to group files.

"Remember each folder's view settings" is disabled. Initally, when configuring after a reinstall, I customized one folder and clicked "Apply to All Folders".

I usually view files by type and the group titles in the "Show in Groups" view take up far too much unnecessary space. I am getting quite annoyed at having to disable it every time I browse a disc. Is there a registry setting I can play alter or add?

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Deleted with 250 points refunded
06/10/2006 02:23 PST
CetusMOD
Community Support Moderator
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war1
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Greetings, aleemjuma !

Create a new DWORD value, or modify the existing value called 'NoSaveSettings' set the value to equal '0'. [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer Value Name: NoSaveSettings Data Type: REG_DWORD (DWORD Value) Value Data: (0 = disabled, 1 = enabled)

Best wishes!
After changing a folder to Listview, go to Tools:Folder Options, choose the View tab and click "Apply to All Folders".
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ASKER

war1: Thanks for the suggestion but it didn't work as far as I could tell. I added the value as in your post and rebooted but when I browsed CD folders, the left pane was still showing files in groups. If I uncheck it, it remembers, but other folders still have it set. From the name of the value, it seems that this setting only remembers individual folder settings? I want never to have to uncheck the "Show in Group" option ever again, not just to remember which folders I have unchecked it for.

moh10ly:  Already done that - see 2nd para of original post  :-)  It seems that the "Apply to All Folders" doesn't actually apply to CD/DVD drives.

Thanks.
Download any apply this to make sure you don't have any Malware, spyware effecting your right click menu..
http://www.kellys-korner-xp.com/regs_edits/rightclickspy.reg

Then Click Start --> Run --> Type Sfc /scannow and insert your XP CD And wait till the check box is disappeared.
This will check your windows system files.. Reboot and check if it works or not..

Good Luck
moh10ly,
This is not a malware/spyware/anythingware issue (unless you want to count WinXP as malware hehe). I take pride in keeping my system clean, always monitoring processes, reg keys, etc.

However, to entertain your suggestion, I used Sysinternals FileMon to check processes active while I right-click and when I browse CD folders. The only processes active were services.exe, csrss.exe, and 2 Explorer processes (one for the main system and one for the window). Services.exe was only accessing sysevent.exe so logging system events - nothing to write home about. [[ For those who don't know, csrss stands for "Client/Server Runtime SubSystem" and is a critical part of Win32. However if there is a csrss.exe running that is not located in %windir%\system32, then it's a virus. The one running on my system is indeed legit. ]]

If you want a HijackThis log let me know but (1) I don't for a minute think this is anything to do with anything other than WinXP itself, and (2) I have manually been through every item in my HijackThis log and verified everything already.

Thanks for the suggestion though.
Well Then try the second suggestion, do a system file check..

btw: you said that there are 2 explorer.exe one for the system which is based on the logon process, the other should be loaded as process when you open a folder, not an IE..
moh10ly,
1. SFC completed no findings.
2. It's not an IE, both processes were explorer.exe, with different PIDs. I have opted to "Launch folder windows in a separate process" as per Folder Options so this was expected.
Any other ideas? I still suspect there is a (possibly undocumented) registry setting controlling this.
K Aleemjuma

1. Click Start --> Run --> type REGEDIT.EXE
2. Delete ALL subkeys under HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\ShellNoRoam\BagMRU\
(usually you will find here a maximum of 5 or 6 entries)
3. Delete ALL subkeys under HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\ShellNoRoam\Bags\
(there might be a lot, up to 400)
4. Close REGEDIT.EXE
5. Open and customize each Explorer’s specific folder you wish (My Documents, Recycle
Bin, My Computer, Printers, Network Connections, Control Panel,…), then close it

It will again open each time with your defined size, position and columns..

Hope This helps.
Let me reiterate. I want to know if there is a default setting that controls the view when Explorer displays a CD folder THAT IT HAS NEVER SEEN BEFORE. Once I unset the Show in Groups, it has no problem in remembering that setting but it's back for every other NEW folder it sees.

I really do not want to reset all my settings! If that's the only way i.e. if nobody else comes up with what I'm really asking for, then I can live with it.
Well I probably think you have the Msvcrt.dll file which is related to EXplorer.exe that's corrupted somehow by a third party program...

use the Windows XP Recovery Console to replace the Msvcrt.dll file with the original version. To do this, follow these steps:
1.      Insert your Windows XP CD-ROM into the computer's CD-ROM drive or DVD-ROM drive, and then restart your computer from the CD-ROM.
2.      At the Welcome to Setup screen, press R to start the Recovery Console.      
3.      Press the number key that corresponds to the installation that you want to repair, and then press ENTER.      
4.      Type the Administrator password, and then press ENTER.      
5.      With the Windows XP CD-ROM still in the CD-ROM drive or DVD-ROM drive, type the following commands, pressing ENTER after each command:
•      cd system32      
•      ren msvcrt.dll msvcrt.old      
•      CD-ROM_or_DVD-ROM_Drive_Letter:      
•      cd \i386      
•      expand msvcrt.dl_ BootDriveLetter:\windows\system32       
•      exit

One last thing, try to enter to the CD when there's no CD At your CD-ROM and right click your on an empty area then select Arrange icons by ---> choose how you want it to look like, then right click on the Explorer bar on your taskbar with the Ctrl key pressed and click on Close, This will save the view settings.. I'm not sure if it'll work for you.
Remaining suggestions posted above all tried (replaced msvcrt.dll, and settings with no cd); issue persists. Solution not found.

Thanks for the suggestions, war1 and moh10ly, but it's still there. Unless someone else has any more suggestions I guess it can't be changed.
I have tried all suggestions posted so far but whenever I put in a file CD for the first time Explorer still shows the files in groups.

I am going on vacation for a few days but I would like to post a min-points pointer question to re-assert this issue. I will next have the opportunity to do this on 11th June so please keep this thread open until then.

If we cannot do that then please close the question with a refund as the issue has not yet been resolved despite all suggestions in this thread being tried.

Many thanks to all who have made suggestions so far and if you have any further suggestions I will try them as soon as I return.

Aleem
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ee_ai_construct
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