I have tweaked appearance via: properties / display properties / appearance / advanced But something I can't seem to change is the size of the font of the icons that appear in the left hand side navigation pane when viewing with folders view in explorer. I'm not talking about the icons on the right - i can change the font of these. What i want to change is the appearance (font) of the navigation pane on the left that shows the nested folders etc. How do I do this? It doesn't seem to be covered by the drop down menu for 'Item's. screenshot: http://www.flickr.com/photos/214607...

Maybe changing the DPI Setting does what you want ??? Click the Settings tab in Display Properties, then Advanced button. Read the text just above the current setting. If you change DPI, then you may have to change back all other items you have changed.

that's a bit drastic. and it would make everything else look rubbish. I think it's mad that there's no easy way i can just make the font bigger (like i was able to do with everything else). No offence, but your suggestion that I make everything bigger is a bit nuts :) windows is nuts windows is nuts

I had the same issue with sizes and had to do exactly what was suggested. I upped the dpi then went to Display Properties > Appearance > Advanced and made everything else smaller. It's a bit fiddling but in the end I achieved a reasonable compromise. You have to take care that text in dialog boxes doesn't get lost outside the box, or text overlaps when on websites. As far as I know there is no other way to fix this and, yes, I agree it is a pity MS didn't come up with better facilities. some other bloke...

Thanks for the comments, guys! :)

Fine, I've assumed a misunderstanding and removed the 'tip'. The rest looks OK (to me). I hope someone comes up with a better way of dealing with your problem. some other bloke...