Windows 11 Folder View Bugs


LesFerch

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Setting the folder type (aka folder optimization) does not work reliably in Windows 11.

I've tested the Change Template of a Drive or Folder on four different Windows 11 machines so far and it's broken on all of them, especially when using removable media. The issue is that the template remains stuck at General items for some, most, or all subfolders. I've submitted a report via the Feedback Hub to join the others already there. The oldest report of this issue dates back 10 months and Microsoft tagged a couple of the similar reports with "Looking into it", but I'm not convinced anything is being done.

To see the similar reports, search the Feedback Hub with these keywords: folder type optimize

Please try it yourself and let me know your results. I've found that setting the folder type works for the root of a drive, but cannot be set reliably for a folder tree (even just a couple of folders deep). Even if you painstakingly set each individual folder, many will revert back to General items. Below is the test procedure I followed, but you should be able to replicate the issue with any folder tree:

Step 1: Format a flash drive with any file system.

Step 2: Create a folder structure at least two levels deep, such as:

Code:
Files\
  F1\
    File1.txt
    File2.txt
  F2\
    File1.txt
    File2.txt
  F3\
    File1.txt
    File2.txt

Note: the file types are irrelevant, We are NOT testing folder type discovery. We're testing the ability to MANUALLY set the folder type.

Step 3: Right-click the top-level folder and select Properties, Customize, and, from the Optimize this folder for menu, select Music (or Pictures), click the check box Also apply this template to all subfolders and then click OK.

Step 4: Open all the subfolders and you should see that some or all are stuck at General items.

If you can confirm the bug, please up vote one or more of the existing reports or even submit your own similar report. The squeaky wheel gets the oil, but I get the impression that not enough squeaking has happened on this issue (yet).
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 10/11
    Computer type
    Laptop
    Manufacturer/Model
    Acer
good if I understand, I recorded a video, and the folders only become an example image folder if you put images inside, the same for music and videos so logically if you paste text documents into folders they will always be general items.
And you don't need to change manually, windows identifies and changes by itself!
1664336233185.png
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 11, Pro for Workstations, 22631.2861 (23H2)
    Computer type
    PC/Desktop
    Manufacturer/Model
    Custom
    CPU
    Amd Ryzen 5 5500 ("Zen 3") (3.6GHz,45-65W,L3:16M,6/12)
    Motherboard
    Asus Prime B450M Gaming/BR Chipset B450 AMD AM4 mATX DDR4 - BIOS 4002
    Memory
    DDR4 OLOy Owl Black, 8GB, 3200MHZ, (x2)
    Graphics Card(s)
    Colorful GeForce GTX 1650 Super
    Sound Card
    -
    Monitor(s) Displays
    Philips TV 43PFG5102/78
    Screen Resolution
    1920x1080
    Hard Drives
    SSD: 120GB, Sata III, Leitura 560MBs e Gravação 540MBs
    HD: Seagate Barracuda 1TB, Sata III, 7200RPM, 64MB
    PSU
    Corsair ATX CV550 550W, 80 Plus Bronze, PFC Ativo
    Case
    Wheel Jack, Mid Tower, Vidro Temperado, Black
    Cooling
    default
    Keyboard
    common
    Mouse
    commom
    Internet Speed
    600mb
    Browser
    Opera
    Antivirus
    Windows Defender
good if I understand, I recorded a video, and the folders only become an example image folder if you put images inside, the same for music and videos so logically if you paste text documents into folders they will always be general items.
And you don't need to change manually, windows identifies and changes by itself!

As I stated, this is NOT about automatic folder type discovery. This is about manually setting the folder type for a tree of folders. That's what does not work reliably in Windows 11. Whether File Explorer does or does not automatically set the folder type based on its contents is irrelevant. Since Windows 7, File Explorer has always provided the option for the user to set the folder type for one folder or a whole folder tree. That feature is broken in Windows 11.

And if you do more testing with a lot of folders, you will find folders that only contain JPG files stuck as General items and cannot be set to Pictures. Same for MP3 and Music and so on. It's seriously broken.
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 10/11
    Computer type
    Laptop
    Manufacturer/Model
    Acer
As I stated, this is NOT about automatic folder type discovery. This is about manually setting the folder type for a tree of folders. That's what does not work reliably in Windows 11. Whether File Explorer does or does not automatically set the folder type based on its contents is irrelevant. Since Windows 7, File Explorer has always provided the option for the user to set the folder type for one folder or a whole folder tree. That feature is broken in Windows 11.

And if you do more testing with a lot of folders, you will find folders that only contain JPG files stuck as General items and cannot be set to Pictures. Same for MP3 and Music and so on. It's seriously broken.
this option of choosing the type of folder is outdated, what's the point of you defining the folder for music and putting images inside, or for images and putting text documents?
does not make sense.
and things have changed, everything is getting very practical, not having to define a folder, for general files and there are only images inside, it's a folder of images!
Anyway, whatever, for me it's working perfect.

and the manual setting mode is working, i just set the images sub folder to general items and it stayed as general items, including the inline organization
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 11, Pro for Workstations, 22631.2861 (23H2)
    Computer type
    PC/Desktop
    Manufacturer/Model
    Custom
    CPU
    Amd Ryzen 5 5500 ("Zen 3") (3.6GHz,45-65W,L3:16M,6/12)
    Motherboard
    Asus Prime B450M Gaming/BR Chipset B450 AMD AM4 mATX DDR4 - BIOS 4002
    Memory
    DDR4 OLOy Owl Black, 8GB, 3200MHZ, (x2)
    Graphics Card(s)
    Colorful GeForce GTX 1650 Super
    Sound Card
    -
    Monitor(s) Displays
    Philips TV 43PFG5102/78
    Screen Resolution
    1920x1080
    Hard Drives
    SSD: 120GB, Sata III, Leitura 560MBs e Gravação 540MBs
    HD: Seagate Barracuda 1TB, Sata III, 7200RPM, 64MB
    PSU
    Corsair ATX CV550 550W, 80 Plus Bronze, PFC Ativo
    Case
    Wheel Jack, Mid Tower, Vidro Temperado, Black
    Cooling
    default
    Keyboard
    common
    Mouse
    commom
    Internet Speed
    600mb
    Browser
    Opera
    Antivirus
    Windows Defender
Have just tried this out and yes the OP is correct, it does appear to be broken.
A folder with only pictures inside, a mix of .png & .jpg, when set to type pictures reverts to general items when viewed later, a folder with only .png or only .jpg also reverts.

An oddity I found is a folder containing around 200 music albums, sorted into individual folders inside. The top most folder I called Audio is correctly set as type music (not aware I had done that even) yet each folder inside is set to general items, folders containing just .mp3s, just .wavs or a mix, and/or containing album art.
Checking the box on the top most folder to apply the same setting to folders inside results in no change to any of the folders but also changes the top most folder to general items from music.

Maybe this is something MS is working on at their usual glacial speed or perhaps it is a deprecated feature and they are yet to notify us about it.
My personal take is that I am not concerned as I do not use the feature, even the little preview icon on the folders is a bit pointless, for me, other than to let you know a folder isn't empty at a glance, as it can only hint at one type of file inside at a time.
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 11 Pro 22H2, build: 22621.521
    Computer type
    PC/Desktop
    Manufacturer/Model
    Scan 3XS Custom 1700
    CPU
    Intel i7-12700K 3.6GHz Base (5.0GHz Turbo)
    Motherboard
    Asus ProArt Creator B660 D4
    Memory
    64GB DDR 3600Mhz
    Graphics Card(s)
    Asus Tuff RTX 3080 10GB OC
    Sound Card
    Onboard Realtek
    Monitor(s) Displays
    Gigabyte G32QC 32inch 16:9 curved @2560 x 1440p 165Hz Freesync Premium Pro/ Dell SE2422H 24inch 16:9 1920 x 1080p 75Hz Freesync
    Screen Resolution
    2560 x 1440p & 1920 x 1080p
    Hard Drives
    WD SN570 1TB NVME (Boot), Samsung 870QVO 1TB (SSD), SanDisk 3D Ultra 500Gb (SSD) x2, Seagate 3Tb Expansion Desk (Ext HDD), 2x Toshiba 1Tb P300 (Ext HDD)
    PSU
    Corsair RM1000X Modular
    Case
    Corsair 4000D Airflow Desktop
    Cooling
    Corsair Hydro H150i RGB Pro XT 360mm Liquid Cooler, 3 x 120mm fans, 1x Exhaust
    Keyboard
    Microsoft Ergonomic
    Mouse
    Logitech G402
    Internet Speed
    800Mbs
    Browser
    Edge Chromium
    Antivirus
    Defender, Malwarebytes
this option of choosing the type of folder is outdated, what's the point of you defining the folder for music and putting images inside, or for images and putting text documents?
does not make sense.
and things have changed, everything is getting very practical, not having to define a folder, for general files and there are only images inside, it's a folder of images!
Anyway, whatever, for me it's working perfect.

and the manual setting mode is working, i just set the images sub folder to general items and it stayed as general items, including the inline organization

The whole reason this issue has been noticed, and reported on Feedback Hub, is because even folders that contain a single file type, such as JPG, are being set by File Explorer to General items and the folder type refuses to change to Pictures. Same for folders of MP3s and folder type Music and so on.

If the automatic folder type discovery is "working perfect" for you, that's great, but it isn't for a lot of people. I suspect it's just as broken on your computer, but you just don't have enough nested folders of one type, be it Pictures, or Music or whatever to have noticed.

And your test for manually setting the folder type is completely backwards. As I said, folders are being stuck at General items, so how can you refute the issue by setting a folder tree to General items? Try setting a whole folder tree to Pictures or Music.
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 10/11
    Computer type
    Laptop
    Manufacturer/Model
    Acer
Have just tried this out and yes the OP is correct, it does appear to be broken.
A folder with only pictures inside, a mix of .png & .jpg, when set to type pictures reverts to general items when viewed later, a folder with only .png or only .jpg also reverts.

Thank you!
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 10/11
    Computer type
    Laptop
    Manufacturer/Model
    Acer
this option of choosing the type of folder is outdated, what's the point of you defining the folder for music and putting images inside, or for images and putting text documents? does not make sense. and things have changed, everything is getting very practical, not having to define a folder, for general files and there are only images inside, it's a folder of images!

And to be very clear, I agree with you on that point, but File Explorer doesn't always get the folder type correct, so there has to be a way to override the automatic folder type discovery. Also, when you organize your photos or music and put the files into subfolders, the upper level folders, that once held files, but now only hold folders, don't automatically revert to General items (and I'm talking here about when its working as designed). So, again another reason to have an override.

You may not have noticed, but I'm the developer of WinSetView. The point of that app is to set the default folder views for every folder type (not just the main five types) to your preferred views, so that you rarely, if ever, have to set any views manually. This functionality is broken if Windows is refusing to change some folders (that contain pictures or music or videos etc.) to anything other than General items, as is certainly the case right now with Windows 11.
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 10/11
    Computer type
    Laptop
    Manufacturer/Model
    Acer
Not a problem on my end !
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows11 23H2 (OS Build 22631.2428)
    Computer type
    PC/Desktop
    Manufacturer/Model
    HP HP ENVY TE01
    CPU
    2.90 gigahertz Intel Core i7-10700
    Motherboard
    Board: HP 8767 A (SMVB)
    Memory
    16214 Megabytes Usable Installed Memor
    Hard Drives
    1511.52 Gigabytes Usable Hard Drive Capacity
    1418.15 Gigabytes Hard Drive Free Space
    Keyboard
    Logitech wireless
    Mouse
    M 185 wireless
    Internet Speed
    12 ms Jitter 8 ms Download 10.5 Mbps Upload 1.7
    Browser
    Edge & FF
    Antivirus
    Windows Defender
Not a problem on my end !
Have you tried setting an entire folder tree (by checking Also apply this template to all subfolders) to Pictures or Music on a removable drive and verified that all the subfolders are set to that type?
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 10/11
    Computer type
    Laptop
    Manufacturer/Model
    Acer
Here's a video I made that demonstrates the folder view issues with Windows 11.

Note: If your "removable" drive mounts as "Local Disk" in Windows 11, then it's a fixed disk in terms of the described behavior.
 
Last edited:

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 10/11
    Computer type
    Laptop
    Manufacturer/Model
    Acer
And this is on removable drives only?
 

My Computers

System One System Two

  • OS
    Windows 11 23H2 Current build
    Computer type
    PC/Desktop
    Manufacturer/Model
    HomeBrew
    CPU
    AMD Ryzen 9 3950X
    Motherboard
    MSI MEG X570 GODLIKE
    Memory
    4 * 32 GB - Corsair Vengeance 3600 MHz
    Graphics Card(s)
    EVGA GeForce RTX 3080 Ti XC3 ULTRA GAMING (12G-P5-3955-KR)
    Sound Card
    Realtek® ALC1220 Codec
    Monitor(s) Displays
    2x Eve Spectrum ES07D03 4K Gaming Monitor (Matte) | Eve Spectrum ES07DC9 4K Gaming Monitor (Glossy)
    Screen Resolution
    3x 3840 x 2160
    Hard Drives
    3x Samsung 980 Pro NVMe PCIe 4 M.2 2 TB SSD (MZ-V8P2T0B/AM) } 3x Sabrent Rocket NVMe 4.0 1 TB SSD (USB)
    PSU
    PC Power & Cooling’s Silencer Series 1050 Watt, 80 Plus Platinum
    Case
    Fractal Design Define 7 XL Dark ATX Full Tower Case
    Cooling
    NZXT KRAKEN Z73 73.11 CFM Liquid CPU Cooler (3x 120 mm push top) + Air 3x 140mm case fans (pull front) + 1x 120 mm (push back) and 1 x 120 mm (pull bottom)
    Keyboard
    SteelSeries Apex Pro Wired Gaming Keyboard
    Mouse
    Logitech MX Master 3S | MX Master 3 for Business
    Internet Speed
    AT&T LightSpeed Gigabit Duplex Ftth
    Browser
    Nightly (default) + Firefox (stable), Chrome, Edge
    Antivirus
    Defender + MB 5 Beta
  • Operating System
    ChromeOS Flex Dev Channel (current)
    Computer type
    Laptop
    Manufacturer/Model
    Dell Latitude E5470
    CPU
    Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-6300U CPU @ 2.40GHz, 2501 Mhz, 2 Core(s), 4 Logical Processor(s)
    Motherboard
    Dell
    Memory
    16 GB
    Graphics card(s)
    Intel(R) HD Graphics 520
    Sound Card
    Intel(R) HD Graphics 520 + RealTek Audio
    Monitor(s) Displays
    Dell laptop display 15"
    Screen Resolution
    1920 * 1080
    Hard Drives
    Toshiba 128GB M.2 22300 drive
    INTEL Cherryville 520 Series SSDSC2CW180A 180 GB SATA III SSD
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    Dell
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    Dell
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    Dell
    Mouse
    Logitech MX Master 3S (shared w. Sys 1) | Dell TouchPad
    Keyboard
    Dell
    Internet Speed
    AT&T LightSpeed Gigabit Duplex Ftth
In the video, when you customized, you never click on Apply. 🤷‍♂️
 

My Computers

System One System Two

  • OS
    Windows 11
    Computer type
    PC/Desktop
    Manufacturer/Model
    ASUS ROG Strix
  • Operating System
    Windows 11
    Computer type
    Laptop
    Manufacturer/Model
    ASUS VivoBook
When I set Views, I go to each folder of a certain viewing type, plus a couple special ones like Recycle Bin and Programs and Features...,
I do the Apply to all folders thing...

0002172.png

... and the views stick, including removable drives, for the duration that they are attached.
 

My Computers

System One System Two

  • OS
    Windows 11
    Computer type
    PC/Desktop
    Manufacturer/Model
    ASUS ROG Strix
  • Operating System
    Windows 11
    Computer type
    Laptop
    Manufacturer/Model
    ASUS VivoBook
In the video, when you customized, you never click on Apply. 🤷‍♂️
Clicking OK is the same as clicking Apply+OK. That's been a standard since Windows has existed. The only reason there is an Apply button is so that you can apply the change without exiting the dialog.
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 10/11
    Computer type
    Laptop
    Manufacturer/Model
    Acer
When I set Views, I go to each folder of a certain viewing type, plus a couple special ones like Recycle Bin and Programs and Features...,
I do the Apply to all folders thing...

View attachment 48172

... and the views stick, including removable drives, for the duration that they are attached.

That's not the issue. The issue is that you cannot change the folder type on removable drives period (it's always stuck at type General items) and you cannot override the automatically detected folder type on fixed drives.
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 10/11
    Computer type
    Laptop
    Manufacturer/Model
    Acer
... for the duration that they are attached.
On Windows 10, both the folder type settings (and of course the views for those types), and any directly applied folder views, are persistent on removable drives, whether you detach/attach or even reboot. On Windows 11, directly applied views are also persistent with removable drives. And if folder type changes on removable drives actually worked on Windows 11, as they do on Windows 10, I'm sure those changes would stick too.

And to be clear, folder views are stored in the registry, not on the disk, so the views do not travel from one machine to another. The views for a removable drive are, therefore, per machine. If I set Details view on machine A and Icons view on machine B, for the same USB drive, it will always be Details on machine A and Icons on machine B.
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 10/11
    Computer type
    Laptop
    Manufacturer/Model
    Acer
All good points...

Mine remains consistent..., I don't get too worked up about it, MS is constantly feckin around with stuff anyway! ;-)
 

My Computers

System One System Two

  • OS
    Windows 11
    Computer type
    PC/Desktop
    Manufacturer/Model
    ASUS ROG Strix
  • Operating System
    Windows 11
    Computer type
    Laptop
    Manufacturer/Model
    ASUS VivoBook
Mine remains consistent...
As in the folder view you set. However, I'm sure you cannot change the folder type on a removable drive on Windows 11. All folders will remain as type General items. Please confirm. Thanks.
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 10/11
    Computer type
    Laptop
    Manufacturer/Model
    Acer

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