Windows 10: Enable or Disable Auto Arrange in Folders in Windows 10

Ok your officially my hero now lol

Thank you very much. That worked. Now any new folder I create has Medium Icons and Auto-Arrange on *Smile

Thats perfect. Fascinating how simple solutions are the easiest sometimes *Party

 

I'm glad it could help. *Smile

 

Thanks for the very good article.
As for Windows 7 and Windows 8, the full row select setting is very useful. Disabling the Sniff Folder settings is very useful too.

But be careful !! As for Windows 7 and 8, disabling the Auto-Arrange feature will have a very bad side-effect if you use network shares. Indeed, this will cause a refresh of the Windows Explorer folder. This will have a bad behavior when you try to name a new created file or folder, as it will be refreshed few seconds after being created...
Here is a scenario description to clarify the issue:
1. You create a new folder on a shared folder (the shared folder must contain at least 1 another folder)
2. Windows Explorer gives the focus inside the folder name, which let you replace the default "New Folder" name.
3. You begin to type your new folder name, for instance "ExampleFolder"
4. Few milliseconds after beginning typing the new name (you had time to type "Examp" for instance), the folder is refreshed, and the name is resetted to "New Folder", although you still have the focus in the folder object.
5. You have to retype the new folder name "ExampleFolder" from the beginning.
=> This behavior will make you waste a lot of time and will lead to confusion as your new folder names will be truncated if your don't take care. For instance the folder name of the scenario can result to "leFolder" if you didn't see that the folder name was refreshed after typing "Examp".

So I don't recommend disabling the Auto-Arrange feature.

 

Hello syldub, and welcome to Ten Forums. *Smile

If you like, you might try the tutorials below instead for Windows 7 and 8.

Windows Explorer Auto Arrange - Disable - Windows 7 Help Forums

Windows Explorer Auto Arrange - Disable in Windows 8

 

Hi Brink,
I was talking about Windows 10. But like I said, the issue I described was also the same on Windows 7 and 8 (with the appropriate provided solutions).
The issue appears when the FWF_EXTENDEDTILES bit is activated in the folder flags registry value (FFlags).
This flag (0x02000000) changes the type of the control used in File Explorer to a List View control, which has a different behavior.
This is what allows to disable the Full Row Select.
In the solution provided here, the flags are set to 0x43000000.
Also, I wonder why the FWF_NOHEADERINALLVIEWS flag (0x01000000) is enable here, as it does seems to not have any incidence.
I don't see any difference between 0x43000000 and 0x42000000: column headers are shown only in the Details view.

Anyway, I don't recommend activating the 0x02000000 flag.
Like many people, I would prefer disabling the Full Row select, and be able to Auto-Arrange files in Tiles view, but the associated drawback is too much crippling.

 

Which DWORD is FWF_NOHEADERINALLVIEWS for?

 

The folder flags are located in the following keys :
[HKCU\SOFTWARE\Classes\Local Settings\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\Shell\Bags\AllFolders\Shell\{5C4F28B5-F869-4E84-8E60-F11DB97C5CC7}]
[HKCU\SOFTWARE\Classes\Local Settings\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\Shell\Bags\AllFolders\Shell\{7d49d726-3c21-4f05-99aa-fdc2c9474656}]
[HKCU\SOFTWARE\Classes\Local Settings\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\Shell\Bags\AllFolders\Shell\{94d6ddcc-4a68-4175-a374-bd584a510b78}]
[HKCU\SOFTWARE\Classes\Local Settings\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\Shell\Bags\AllFolders\Shell\{b3690e58-e961-423b-b687-386ebfd83239}]
[HKCU\SOFTWARE\Classes\Local Settings\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\Shell\Bags\AllFolders\Shell\{5fa96407-7e77-483c-ac93-691d05850de8}]
The concerned DWORD value is : FFLAGS

You can refer to the MSDN for the FOLDERFLAGS enumeration:
FOLDERFLAGS enumeration (Windows)

 

Ok. That's what I thought you meant, but wanted to be certain.

I got the FFLAGS values used in the downloadable .reg files in the tutorial after setting the folder views.

 

Do you have a solution for having full row select disabled + auto-arrange and align to grid menus, without the "refresh issue" on network shared folders?

 

You can right click in the Network folder, click on View, and check "Auto arrange" and "Align to grid".

If wanted, you could also group by "Category" to have it back to default view.

https://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/3...dows-10-a.html

 

I think you didn't read the issue description I had reported...
Your last reply is completely off-topic.
Checking "Auto arrange" and "Align to grid" has nothing related to the issue.

 

I'm not aware of a way to avoid the refresh issue other than not having auto arrange disabled.

 

Yes, but the Auto-Arrange feature is not configurable in the Details View... So, does it mean that the Auto-Arrange feature is enabled even though it is not shown as enabled (and grayed out)?

 

If you use the .reg file in the tutorial to enable auto arrange again, does it still happen?

 

If I execute the script "Enable_Auto_Arrange_in_File_Explorer.bat", the issue disappears.
This is quite normal, because the FFlags FWF_EXTENDEDTILES bit (0x02000000) is then disabled.
Actually as the [HKCU\Software\Classes\Local Settings\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Shell\Bags] registry keys are deleted, the default folder flags are then used, which are 0x41200001 for undetermined folders.