Sorting Files

I like to sort my files within a folder by "Date modified" and it usually works fine, but recently I've noticed that Windows Explorer will revert back to sorting files by "Name" everytime I exit a folder. In the past when I set files to sort by "Date modified" it would stay that way even after I exit and re-enter a folder. Anyone else noticed this too?

Have you tried to set things up the way you want in "Folder Options"?

TechnoMage2021 said:

Have you tried to set things up the way you want in "Folder Options"?

Click to expand...

I haven't change anything in Folder Options to cause this problem though, came up all of sudden.

donb2022 said:

I like to sort my files within a folder by "Date modified" and it usually works fine, but recently I've noticed that Windows Explorer will revert back to sorting files by "Name" every time I exit a folder. In the past when I set files to sort by "Date modified" it would stay that way even after I exit and re-enter a folder. Anyone else noticed this too?

Click to expand...

Normally, your view selections, including sort options, will be saved automatically when you close the folder. Are other changes, such as setting the view (List, Details, Icons) being ignored as well or is it just the sorting?

If view changes in general are no longer being remembered, you may have hit the 5000 saved view default limit or have corruption in the registry keys that contain the saved views. In regards to checking and, possibly increasing the limit, please see:


If increasing the limit does not help, then there may be corruption that can be fixed by clearing out all the saved views. You can manually delete those keys, but then all of your folder views will revert to Microsoft's defaults. Therefore, I recommend using my WinSetView app to set all your preferred default views. All views will still be reset, but they will revert to your preferred defaults instead of Microsoft's.

LesFerch said:

Normally, your view selections, including sort options, will be saved automatically when you close the folder. Are other changes, such as setting the view (List, Details, Icons) being ignored as well or is it just the sorting?

If view changes in general are no longer being remembered, you may have hit the 5000 saved view default limit or have corruption in the registry keys that contain the saved views. In regards to checking and, possibly increasing the limit, please see:

Increase Folder View Settings Cache Memory Size in Windows 11 Tutorial

This tutorial will show you how to change or increase the folder view settings cache memory size for your account in Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows 10, and Windows 11 to have Windows remember more of your folder view settings. You can change the folder view settings in Windows to what you want...

www.elevenforum.com

If increasing the limit does not help, then there may be corruption that can be fixed by clearing out all the saved views. You can manually delete those keys, but then all of your folder views will revert to Microsoft's defaults. Therefore, I recommend using my WinSetView app to set all your preferred default views. All views will still be reset, but they will revert to your preferred defaults instead of Microsoft's.

Click to expand...

View options works fine, just the sorting.

donb2022 said:

View options works fine, just the sorting.

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Strange. The same thing appears to have been reported here.

I asked the OP of that thread if there is any software installed that may be affecting Explorer's views, such as WindowManager, but haven't received a response. Do you have anything like that installed?

LesFerch said:

Strange. The same thing appears to have been reported here.

I asked the OP of that thread if there is any software installed that may be affecting Explorer's views, such as WindowManager, but haven't received a response. Do you have anything like that installed?

Click to expand...

No, haven't installed any software recently. I'm guessing it's a bug caused by the recent Windows 11 update because that's when I noticed it (I also noticed that the "Check For Updates" button is no longer available in Windows Update)

donb2022 said:

View options works fine, just the sorting.

Click to expand...

As far as File explorer is concerned, setting the sort order of a folder is a 'View'.
Did you check Option 1 of that tutorial to see what you had used?


Denis

donb2022 said:

No, haven't installed any software recently. I'm guessing it's a bug caused by the recent Windows 11 update because that's when I noticed it (I also noticed that the "Check For Updates" button is no longer available in Windows Update)

Click to expand...

The "Check for updates" button should be there unless it's a company PC with a policy set to remove that option.

I assume you've already rebooted, but if not, please try that.

Otherwise, I would create a new local account (make it an administrator), login with that account, and check things. If Explorer works fine and "Check for updates" is back, then we can look at ways to fix your profile or migrate you to a new profile.

Show hidden System files then delete a file you find called desktop.ini (yes, it does not matter what folder you are in, it is always named this) (warning - if this is one of the Windows special folders, like Documents, Downloads, Music, Photos, or Videos, it will also remove the icon associated with it, so do so at your own risk).




With any other folder not one of those special folders, delete that file, and it will revert to default sort by Name. Now, set the sort again and see if it sticks.

Don't forget to re-enable the above setting once you're done.

johnlgalt said:

Show hidden System files then delete a file you find called desktop.ini

Click to expand...

Back in the Windows XP days, the desktop.ini file was used to store the folder view settings, such as sort options. Starting in Windows 7, most folder view settings were moved to the registry. The folder's icon is still saved to desktop.ini and the folder type (e.g. "Pictures") is also saved to desktop.ini on NTFS volumes (but the folder type setting in the registry takes precedence). I wouldn't expect the OP's issue to be resolved by deleting the desktop.ini file, but there's no harm in trying.

johnlgalt said:

Now, set the sort again and see if it sticks.

Click to expand...

It's worth a shot. I have a 3rd party file manager that still stores that info in desktop.ini, and when it goes bonkers the same incorrect sort also gets applied to Windows Explorer.

That's been my fix, and I did say the above.

johnlgalt said:

I have a 3rd party file manager that still stores that info in desktop.ini

Click to expand...

I'd like to run some tests to see if it's something I need to deal with in my app. What's the name of that file manager?

donb2022 said:

I like to sort my files within a folder by "Date modified" and it usually works fine, but recently I've noticed that Windows Explorer will revert back to sorting files by "Name" everytime I exit a folder. In the past when I set files to sort by "Date modified" it would stay that way even after I exit and re-enter a folder. Anyone else noticed this too?

Click to expand...

I have also been having trouble. After setting up folder view, sort by, arranging title sections the way I want them (width etc) and saving this to work with all folders of the same type e.x. Documents or General, right clicking on a folder and asking widows to apply that settings to all folders and subfolders only works for the top tier folder I have applied it to. All subfolders are still arranged as MS Windows default view settings.
And even when applying this to top tier folders, I often find Windows has reverted the view settings to default again.
I have not yet found a reason as to why Windows wont keep my settings.

antspants said:

I have also been having trouble. After setting up folder view, sort by, arranging title sections the way I want them (width etc) and saving this to work with all folders of the same type e.x. Documents or General, right clicking on a folder and asking widows to apply that settings to all folders and subfolders only works for the top tier folder I have applied it to. All subfolders are still arranged as MS Windows default view settings.
And even when applying this to top tier folders, I often find Windows has reverted the view settings to default again.
I have not yet found a reason as to why Windows wont keep my settings.

Click to expand...

There is no option to apply a view to a specific folder tree. You can only apply a view to all folders of the same type. So, for example, if you modify the view for a folder of type Pictures and then click "Apply to Folders", all folders of type Pictures should then get that new view, regardless of their location. That should still be working in Windows 11.

What does not work correctly (with vanilla Windows 11) is the option to set the folder type. Setting the folder type can be done on a folder tree basis on Windows 10, but on Windows 11 it's broken. That is, the option "Also apply this template to all subfolders" does not work.

On removable drives (ones that do not mount as "local disk") the folders will remain as type "General items" unless you set them one at a time and, even then, they will often revert back to type General items.

On a "local disk", such as drive C, automatic folder discovery keeps resetting the folder type based on content. Windows 11 will not respect your choice to override the discovered folder type.

I have been told that Microsoft is aware of the issues and is working on a fix, but no timeline for the release of a fix has been provided.

Note: Installing StartAllBack and selecting "Kinda 10" mode will bring back the Windows 10 behavior in regards to setting folder type. The same may be true for other tools, such as Explorer Patcher. That's why some Windows 11 users here are not experiencing any issues with setting the folder type.

LesFerch said:

There is no option to apply a view to a specific folder tree. You can only apply a view to all folders of the same type. So, for example, if you modify the view for a folder of type Pictures and then click "Apply to Folders", all folders of type Pictures should then get that new view, regardless of their location. That should still be working in Windows 11.

Click to expand...

That’s what I am referring to, and they are all secondary drives. It isn’t holding. No extra modification software or tweaks less Brinks tweaks.
So I feel the OP’s frustration.

antspants said:

That’s what I am referring to, and they are all secondary drives. It isn’t holding. No extra modification software or tweaks less Brinks tweaks.
So I feel the OP’s frustration.

Click to expand...

Ahh, but let's be clear on what's not holding. I'm saying that whatever changes you make to the default view for a particular folder type by clicking "Apply to Folders" is likely being saved and applied to all folders of the same type. The problem, I expect, is that you can't make the folder type itself stick to the folders on your secondary drives. That is, those folders keep reverting to type "General items".

However, if you're saying that you change the view settings for a folder of type "General items", click "Apply to Folders", and those changes are not reflected in the General items type folders on your secondary drive, well, that would be unexpected.

LesFerch said:

Ahh, but let's be clear on what's not holding. I'm saying that whatever changes you make to the default view for a particular folder type by clicking "Apply to Folders" is likely being saved and applied to all folders of the same type. The problem, I expect, is that you can't make the folder type itself stick to the folders on your secondary drives. That is, those folders keep reverting to type "General items".

However, if you're saying that you change the view settings for a folder of type "General items", click "Apply to Folders", and those changes are not reflected in the General items type folders on your secondary drive, well, that would be unexpected.

Click to expand...

Both. And for extra measure, general view, documents view, media view… have all been setup the same way so as windows doesn’t get confused as to what the hell I want my explorer to look like.

If I setup the parent folder the way I like it,

"General items", click "Apply to Folders"

Click to expand...

The parent folder will now show my proffered settings (lets say as General but it doesn't matter as my Documents view settings are the same) then I could click on a subfolder and the settings are default, so I right click on that subfolder and apply my General settings to that (also apply to all folders) and if there is yet another subfolder, that folder is also still as the default view, regardless that right clicking on any of these folders and their being set to “General” and pretty much on a reboot, all folders are back to windows default view. This also happens with ”Grouping” I gave up caring and just do what I have to by sorting through windows default mess.
I’m not really looking for answers to this issue because I no longer give a crap, like I no loner give a crap about seeing other computers attached to my network. I’m reserved to believing windows is crap. But I have no alternative so I venture on.

I’m just sharing the OP’s frustration. But thank you

antspants said:

Both. And for extra measure, general view, documents view, media view… have all been setup the same way so as windows doesn’t get confused as to what the hell I want my explorer to look like.

If I setup the parent folder the way I like it,

The parent folder will now show my proffered settings (lets say as General but it doesn't matter as my Documents view settings are the same) then I could click on a subfolder and the settings are default, so I right click on that subfolder and apply my General settings to that (also apply to all folders) and if there is yet another subfolder, that folder is also still as the default view, regardless that right clicking on any of these folders and their being set to “General” and pretty much on a reboot, all folders are back to windows default view. This also happens with ”Grouping” I gave up caring and just do what I have to by sorting through windows default mess.
I’m not really looking for answers to this issue because I no longer give a crap, like I no loner give a crap about seeing other computers attached to my network. I’m reserved to believing windows is crap. But I have no alternative so I venture on.

I’m just sharing the OP’s frustration. But thank you

Click to expand...

Since you want all your folder views to be the same, why the heck haven't you used my WinSetView app? Even on Windows 11, it will ensure that all your folders have the same view, everywhere, all the time. And, no, it's not a mod. It's just registry settings. See the docs for details.

I understand you "no longer give a crap", but when you run it and see every folder, on every drive with exactly the same view, it will give you that little "take that Microsoft" moment.

donb2022 said:

I like to sort my files within a folder by "Date modified" and it usually works fine, but recently I've noticed that Windows Explorer will revert back to sorting files by "Name" everytime I exit a folder. In the past when I set files to sort by "Date modified" it would stay that way even after I exit and re-enter a folder. Anyone else noticed this too?

Click to expand...

Getting back to the original issue...

It seems there was a bug introduced recently on Insider builds. See this Feedback Hub item: The Windows Insider Program