General Turn On or Off Use Check Boxes to Select Items in Windows 11

Brink · Jul 28, 2021

This tutorial will show you how to turn on or off use check boxes to select files, folders, and drives for your user account in Windows 11.

You can use check boxes to make selecting multiple items in any order easier in File Explorer and on the desktop in Windows.

When check boxes is turned on, you can hover the pointer over each item to reveal the check box to check (select) or uncheck (unselect) it.

Contents

Option One: Turn On or Off Use Check Boxes to Select Items in File Explorer Command Bar
Option Two: Turn On or Off Use Check Boxes to Select Items in Folder Options
Option Three: Turn On or Off Use Check Boxes to Select Items using BAT file

EXAMPLE: Use check boxes to select items in File Explorer

Option One

Turn On or Off Use Check Boxes to Select Items in File Explorer Command Bar

1 Open File Explorer (Win+E).

2 Click/tap on View on the command bar. (see screenshot below)

3 Click/tap on Show.

4 Click/tap on Item check boxes to toggle it on (checked) or off (unchecked).

Option Two

Turn On or Off Use Check Boxes to Select Items in Folder Options

1 Open Folder Options.

2 Click/tap on the View tab. (see screenshot below)

3 Check (on) or uncheck (off) Use check boxes to select items for what you want.

4 Click/tap on OK.

Option Three

Turn On or Off Use Check Boxes to Select Items using BAT file

1 Do step 2 (on) or step 3 (off) below for what you want.

2 Turn On Use Check Boxes to Select Items

A) Click/tap on the Download button below to download the BAT file below, and go to step 4 below.

Turn_On_Use_check_boxes_to_select_items.bat

Download

(Contents of BAT file for reference)

Code:

REG ADD "HKCU\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Advanced" /V AutoCheckSelect /T REG_DWORD /D 1 /F

taskkill /f /im explorer.exe
start explorer.exe

3 Turn Off Use Check Boxes to Select Items

A) Click/tap on the Download button below to download the BAT file below, and go to step 4 below.

Turn_Off_Use_check_boxes_to_select_items.bat

Download

(Contents of BAT file for reference)

Code:

REG ADD "HKCU\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Advanced" /V AutoCheckSelect /T REG_DWORD /D 0 /F

taskkill /f /im explorer.exe
start explorer.exe

4 Save the .bat file to your desktop.

5 Unblock the .bat file.

6 Run the .bat file.

7 You will now notice your screen flicker and a command prompt quickly open and close as the explorer process is restarted to apply the registry changes.

8 When finished, you can delete the downloaded .bat file if you like.

That's it,
Shawn Brink