merill.net

Brilliant! Not having the folder tree was driving me insane. Thanks!

Lifesaver! Thank you :D

Been using Windows for 20 odd years now, and so often when you upgrade from one OS to the next it is like having to learn a new language. It seems that they try to make things more stream-lined with increasingly more of the 'classic view' features being hidden away of removed. Presumably they think this simplifies things, but to me it just makes them much much harder and slower. I mean I've just upgraded from XP to W7, and having a default of no Menu Bar or Folder Tree, or even User Directory is insane. The default alternatives offered of Burn, Share, Libraries, Downloads etc... I have nil immidiate interest in any of these things.

Thx for the tip!

p.s. Seriously considering installing a classic shell to end this battle of unfamiliarity

thanks dude. this helps alot, that windows 7 feature is driving me nuts

Thank you, thank you ! ! ! Can't tell you how many hours I've spent trying to figure out how to do this. I'm truly grateful for this tip.

Favorite not show detail

Thank you very much, I was also annoyed by this new File Explorer... I have win7 home pre installed in laptop....

Somebody would now about other EXPLORER PROGRAM for windows that we could use??!! Instead of the formal one. thank you in advance.

Carlomagn0

Thanks you so much!!!
I hate that Win7 has removed or hidden all the useful features and custom tailored the entire OS to people who only use their PCs for Office and web surfing.
Maybe you have delayed my switch to Linux a few weeks but I fear that it is inevitable.
Thanks again.

thanks for the tip, will also check out cubic explorer. I want to add that organising files in a treelike structure has been around for ages and ages, longer than Micro$oft. It is essential. For M$ to hide visual access to the most basic navigation of your own data is arrogant beyond belief, or at least would be beyond belief if the company was not M$. On a sidenote I completely HATE the new 'ribbon' in M$ office and will stick to OOo from here on. Samme arrogance there. Some of us actually uses the keyboard for navigation....

Thank you thank you thank you!!!! This was driving me buggy, thanks for helping me to fix it!

hell yes. thank you.

ahhhh thank you!!!! i also felt the pain :-)

Thankyou, that is great!

I have had two weeks of putting up with that horrible Explorer feature in Windows 7.

Windows Annoyances - don't you just love them.

DeafLama

You really made my day!!! I was irritated for weeks that MS made this annoying change. Today I looked at the internet because more people had to have this problem. Thanks for this great tip!

Thank you SO much for this! Yet another "improvement" that the Win 7 geniuses came up with. I was forced to switch from XP and hated Vista for nearly two years so I finally decided to go for Win 7. Nothing but pain, program problems and stupid defaults that cripple work flow and annoy (like this one).

Computer is not faster, or more stable. Problems with Logitech camera, headphones, Adobe suite, browsers...etc. Thanks for solving one headache!

So I have bought Windows7 home premium 64 bit.
I have over 6Tb of hard drives and am doing a major data sort.
I do a search for folder names, find say 3 or 4 copies of a folder by that name.
I want to open each folder, showing its location, in a new explorer window.

I right click on the folder names it finds and open in a new window.
I go to each window and it shows me the path that I came from - not the tree, but a search result.

I need to open the parent folder, which cannot be done from the search. Is the only way to do this to navigate to the location of each search result manually?

This is the only frustration I have had with Windows7 so far.
I would REALLY appreciate someone finding the answer to this...

The quickest way I have found so far is to open the folder from the search resiult in a new window, then right click and properties of something in that folder, then under the General tab there is a location path, I highlight and copy the path and paste it in the address bar. Surely there is an option to expand location of a search result somewhere?

thanks a lot!!!

Thank you!!!

thanks for sharing this, I found it very useful...

Help I'm new to Windows 7 - I'm checking both show all folders and automaticaly expand to current folder. Although Apply is greyed out they do remain checked when I go back in but it doesn't expand to the current folder in the left hand pane. Am I doing something wrong or is this something that has beeen lost?

Thanks a lot, this "feature" @Windows 7 was really annoying

Agree - explorer seems to be taking huge amounts of time clicking folders. I'ts OK if you store everything at top level (how good is that?!)
Also, can't see a way to search for text in files. I don't care how long it takes, so why do i need it indexed, i just want to find stuff.

THANK YOU! This pissed me off SO much because I've been trying to organize my files since my upgrade/downgrade?!

THANK YOU!!! I HATE HATE HATE not seeing the tree! I move stuff around a lot and drag and drop is so much easier than edit-move-select down through a long list crap!

AWESOME. Thanks. I was about give up and accept MSFT's decision to trash my XP workflow.

I want the full folder location address not this.
It is supposed to show C:/folder name/folder name/folder name/file name in the top address bar.

Thanks! You made my day! :D

For those who want to make the Windows 7 Explorer more XP like, try Classic Shell (http://classicshell.sourceforge.net/). It puts back DOZENS of XP features into Windows Explorer in Windows 7/Vista.

Your tip is OK but it doesn't slove the other problem.
I'm working in the network environment where there are dozens of computers.
Each time in Explorer or in any Open/Save As dialog box all network places are expanded, and I've found no option to tell Win7 that it should keep them collapsed. This is very annoying and takes time to fill the left pane with all unnecessary places.

Is there any way of displaying Network places collapsed?

Thank you.

Thanks for the posted above that suggested CubicExplorer, I will try it out. And I agree with you that is almost the last straw. Microsoft is arrogant and used to "telling" people how they should use computers and as a result has lost touch with the customer and is rapidly becoming irrelevant.

I'm responsible for my firm's IT department and this week I am going to recommend a Ubuntu pilot program for all our PCs instead of upgrading to Windows 7. Hopefully we can say goodbye to Windows forever

“Automatically expand to current folder” is one thing but still you couldn't see files in folders by just using the page up or down keys to move from one to another folder as in Window XP (you have to click or press Enter to see files in Win7 - too much clicking using Win7!)

Any one know how?

rustedme is describing a feature that is really neat and I'am missing it too..... I have browsed all Internet for some days now, but still no solution! Anyone knows? Is it possible to automatically show the files in current folder without pressing ENTER every time....

I hate W7...... but still stuck with it!
Thanks.

Scout

Anyone remember XTree Gold? It died when long filenames came along. But Since then I've been using ZTreeWin. True, you can't right click to view properties or set permissions in a networking situation, but I think I'd have gone truly mad without it. Check it out at www.ztree.com/html/ztreewin.htm

Phil

ok, sorry, its the "Automatically expand to current folder" option in the "folder option" tab

Michel

Etienne Said:

Been running win7 for a few months now.
I somewhat agree to Mike Quinn’s post, but I would add a MAJOR annoyance:
the folder list on the left hand side keeps scrolling up when I dble-click to expand a folder. So I need to manually center it everytime I open a subfolder. And this is driving me crazy.
Haven’t found a solution for that yet, and I hope this is gonna be fixed (since the options are quite limited…)

Anyone found a solution?

Cheers, Michel

Some of the choices were Directory Opus and Total Commander. Personally I liked xplorer2 and it has a free version as well http://zabkat.com/x2lite.htm

Here's a list of alternatives.

http://www.simplehelp.net/2006/10/11/10-windows-explorer-alternatives-compared-and-reviewed/

What other Windows Explorers do your friends use? I'm going from XP to Win7 and I don't think I can make peace with this windows explorer. XP Windows Explorer was prefect, why did they screw that all up!! XP windows Explorer doesn't run on Win7. Tried that already.
Thanks,
Phil

It doesn't work.

Some Windows 7 stills does'nt know what to do with this options.

Thank goodness! This was driving me insane!

We are slowly but surely getting back to the functionality of File Manager / Program Manager.

Great info, because of the default "no expansion" I deleted folders that I wanted to keep. If you want a less cluttered explorer untick "show all folders" and tick "Automatically expand to current folder" Only then will the View tab "Hide empty drives in the Computer folder" work. When it is ticked everything shows. In either case the auto expand works. Thanks to Recuva it was easy to recover the lost folders.

BIG BIG Thanks!

I was getting made a windows 7 for not including this feature. I did a simple google search for "windows 7 how explorer folder" and you were the first result. What an easy fix. thanks for posting this!

Explorer really became unusable since Windows Vista. Even if you can get the folder pane back, when expanding folders to see their subfolders it always scrolls up so you can't see what you expanded the folder for in the first place. Also, the pane is missing horizontal scrollbars. Line height has been increased to a ridiculous size so that even in classic mode you can see significantly less files at once. Instead of fixing the broken status bar, they stripped it of all functionality and use. The new details pane often fails to give even such basic information as file size, especially if you select multiple files (even *after* clicking to show more info, which very often doesn't do anything at all).

I know they like to call these things "improvements" or making Explorer sleeker. In fact, it just became impossible to work with. These are not things people miss just because they got used to how they worked before. They are things that people who actually try to *work* with a computer do many times a day, and which may have taken them 1 click in older Explorers, and now take 3 or 5 clicks, or even some weird keyboard workaround if there is one.

After 17 years of using Windows, Windows 7 finally broke the straw of making me go and get a replacement Explorer (I use CubicExplorer now). I can't believe the ignorance and disrespect of customers' wishes that Microsoft shows in these regards. Seems like they still don't understand that their safe monopoly position in the PC OS market is quickly dwindling.

Thank you, that detail was driving me carzy.
But overall I am happy with my WIN7, Vista had a very short life on my ThinkPad.

Thanks! Works in Server 2008 R2. It was driving me nuts. Microsoft really needs some ergonomic talent, to design a UI. It's like every time you step into your car the controls move around. It shouldn't be this difficult and such a time waster.

Very helpful info, thanks! :)

Thank you! I was beginning to think Windows7 was abstracting everything to the point of being useless to power users. Who on earth wants the menu to remain invisible and the folder tree hidden? That's just crazy.

I'm still trying to decide if I like the new way the taskbar groups my applications. I'm going to give it a try for a while.

-tom

thanks! i thought this was gone. I actually like this better done doing explore in windows xp

Thanks for that.
It has been driving me insane navigating project folder structure

Thanks, one of the few frustrations in the now vastly improved Windows OS

Quote for Truth: This was driving me nuts. Thanks!

I've had Windows 7 up for about 48 hours, and I swear 47 hours have been spent looking for a way to expand the folder tree - automatically.

The funny part is, "Automatically expand to current folder" describes the opposite of what you would think it is describing. So, no wonder it's so easy to miss. MS really should think about hiring some people who can express themselves in writing.

I can't thank you enough for this tip.

Thank you, thank you, thank you.

This was driving me nuts. Thanks!

Been running win7 for a few months now.
I somewhat agree to Mike Quinn's post, but I would add a MAJOR annoyance:
the folder list on the left hand side keeps scrolling up when I dble-click to expand a folder. So I need to manually center it everytime I open a subfolder. And this is driving me crazy.
Haven't found a solution for that yet, and I hope this is gonna be fixed (since the options are quite limited...)

@Mark Labaj
If the vista explorer works similar to win7, in the menu organize you can select what is displayed.

Thanks I was going crazy without this :)

Great tip man!

Thanks for the thread. However, I have Vista and I have lost the Navigation Pane on the left that shows the directory tree. Does anyone know how to get that back in Vista?

I'm VERY disappointed with Windows 7 overall (had the beta running in a VM and installed the RTM starting 2 days ago and finally finished this morning). As much as I disliked Vista, W7 is even worse. The tree view is a no brainer... You just HAVE to have it. All this other junk in the left pane, where the tree view is supposed to be, I have no need for. At least this fix gets rid of all of it, except, unfortunately, for the favorites menu. Search is another mess. Windows 95 search was better than XP. XP search was redesigned to NOT find things, based on their filename extension... You had to manually add specific extensions to be found in the registry. Was a ridiculous change. Then Vista came along and just made it super confusing... no more right-click folder and search. Now you have to drive INTO the folder and use the search entry in the upper left hand corner, which I, do this day, have still not completely figured out (between December 2006 and 8/7/2009). Now Windows 7 is even worse. Search results no longer have column headings, so I now can't expand the folder column to see the full path and I can't specify (at least, not that I can find), that I just want to look for file name. Seems I have to START the search going before I can start modifying the criteria (like Vista). This appears to be severely dumbed down.

It seems an improvement over the vista explorer - but it is really just restoring functionality lost between xp and vista.

Explorer has been crap since Vista anyways.

Me too!

I can't believe they haven't included the user's folder by default. Madness.

Oh well, it's still a big step up from Vista, no denying that.

laze