Hi, Even though I have CLEARED the option "Remember each folder's view settings", Windows Explorer still insists on remembering each folder's view settings. Why won't it honour my wishes? I want just a single setting for all of my folders, and when I temporarily alter the column widths for a certain folder I don't want it to remember it.

You are going about it backwards. When you clear that box it only applies to that folder. Try this instead. Go to My Computer> C:> tools> folder options> view> then set as desired(tick "remember each folder settings")> Apply to all folders. Repeat for each drive letter.

OtheHill, Unless I read it wrong, the OP doesn't want Windows to remember whatever changes he made on a global scale. He only want Windows to remember whatever changes he set in that one folder. klint, This is not how Windows work. Whatever change you made is per session only. You close the folder out goes your settings. You reopen the folder cometh in the default settings. i_Xp/VistaUser

OtheHill, I've tried your suggestion but it doesn't work. It still remembers any changes I make to subdirectories, even thought I've told it not to remember any settings in the C: drive. XpUser, What you're saying doesn't seem to agree with my experience. I spent some time carefully setting up my desired column widths in C:\. I then went Tools, Folder Options, View, UNTICKED "Remember view settings" (because I don't want it to remember), and clicked on Apply to All Folders. Then I went into Program Files, changed the file name column width to something horrible, then I closed Explorer, logged out, rebooted, went back into C:\, that was all OK, then into Program Files, and lo and behold it has been a naughty boy and remembered what it shouldn't have remembered, it changed my file name column to that horrible width I had set before I logged out. So much for "you close the folder out goes your settings." If only that were the case, I would be a happy user. Klint

klint The settings you are trying to save are not identified as changable in the folder options. Therefore they are not affected by either a global or individual save. I would guess column width is something on the same order as changing the default font or icon size. There may be wasy to accomplish that but I don't think saving changes in a folder is going to save column width. The only items subject to global or folder by folder are the items with boxes you can tick or untick.

Try opening up Windows Explorer and highlighting the folder you want to change and make appropriate changes. Go to VIEW - CUSTOMIZE THIS FOLDER, unless you want to make background changes or anything , just CLICK FINISH. Make changes to whatever folders you want and see how that works. I've have luck in setting it up this way. Good Luck.

OtheHill, Thanks for the info, I didn't realise that the "Don't remember view settings" didn't apply to things like column widths. So it seems I have no choice other than to have those settings remembered for every folder. By the way, I've searched and found that the settings that I don't want remembered are saved in the registry settings HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Shell\Bags, ...\BagMRU, and ...\ShellNoRoam\.... I deleted those registry keys, and tried to disable the creation of these keys by setting the value "BagMRU Size" to 0. That didn't work: it caused Explorer to crash every time I attempted to open a new window. I tried having a very low value (50) so that it remembers only a minimum of folders, but that caused it to run very slowly. In the end, I gave up and set it back to the default value of 5000. SDIT, Thanks, I tried your suggestion but it's not what I'm after. If I change anything for a folder and save it using "Customize", it creates a hidden file in that folder called Desktop.ini. Also, you say "make changes to whatever folders you want" - but that's just it, I don't want to make changes to individual folders, I just want to have a default set of settings such as column widths (in "detail view"), I want to save that for all folders just once, not for any particular folders. If I subsequently change the way I view a folder (e.g. by widening the file name field and shortening the file type field), I want that to be temporary, not remembered. It looks as if that's not possible with the current versions of Explorer. I preferred it the way it was in Windows 3.11 File Manager: if you wanted to save the view settings, you had to do Shift+close; if you just closed the File Manager window, it didn't remember the settings. Thanks anyway. Klint