Windows 10: Customize File Explorer Search Default Columns

Long time lurker, first post in this forum. First Let me say hello and thanks to Brink and other contributors for all the great tips and tricks, I've used a ton of them since sevenforums.com and now tenforums.com.

Last year I moved from win7 to win 10 with a new laptop and I'm hoping I can change some behavior in File Explorer I don't like. I've done a lot of Googling and haven't found much.

I might be one of the few who regularly use the file search function in File Explorer. It's actually pretty powerful once you get to know the syntax. With win7 once you set up a set of columns for the search returns it was persistent, would always be the same. For win10 it resets to the default view for every new folder you search which is quite annoying for me since I don't like default column set.

Does anyone know of a way to change the Search template or some other trick so Explorer Search always comes up with my column preference? I did find a reg tweak to make Search use the details view every time which helps, but that's all I've been able to find.

:)

 

Customize Windows 10 File Explorer search result columns


How do I customize search result columns in File Explorer? For example, I would always like to see the Date Created column in all my searches. I have tried using tips for earlier Windows versions, but Windows 10 seems to have disabled the "Apply to Folders" button in the View tab of the Folder Options window for search results.

 

With the Windows File Explorer, is there any way of changing the default display window column widths?

With the Windows File Explorer, is there any way of changing the default display window column widths?

I have some files with very long names, and I always want to see the file extensions as well as the names. In the default Windows File Explorer, the first column listing the names of the files is too narrow for some of my file names with extensions. I
can drag the right margin of the first column to the right and fix that, but the next time I open File Explorer, I have to do it again. I would like to set the column widths and have that be the default thereafter.

 

setting default view for Winodws Explorer Search Reasults

Thank you for the detailed response. To change the search result's view from content to list, we suggest following the steps below:

• Open the File Explorer and try to search for files.
• In the toolbar, open the View tab and click List
  to change the view.
• Once changed, close the File Explorer.
• Open the File Explorer again and try to search to see if the setting has been retained.

After performing the steps above, reply back to us so we can provide additional help.