Tuesday, November 11, 2008

Vista Keeps Changing Your Folder Icons?

If you have Vista you may know that Windows has had a habit of "forgetting" the way in which you have set up any folders on your desktop. Nothing is more frustrating than opening a desktop folder and finding it's been "re-arranged" because Windows has had a lapse and now the order is not what you wanted and/or the icon sizes are incorrect. The frustrating part is that it's always been really hard to reset your folder display properties and have Windows remember what you want for next time. Here's how you can do it and have it work (most of the time, at least). Go to the desktop folder you want to reset and right-click on it. Now choose "Properties", and then "Customize". On the page that opens you'll see "What kind of folder do you want?" and "Use this folder type as a template". Choose from the drop-down menu below these items, the type of folder you want, of the five listed. For a folder holding desktop shortcuts for instance, choose "Documents". Now place a check mark in "Apply this template to all sub-folders". Now click "Apply" then "OK". Go back to your desktop and open the folder you just modified. Right-click on the already open folder and you will get a drop-down menu giving you various ways you can choose to organize the folder items. If you had been resetting another type of folder, say music, for instance, you could have chosen one of the "Music" options and the resulting drop-down menu, as outlined above, would give you options to arrange you music according to different criteria ( song titles, artist names, etc.) You may have to do all your desktop folders one at a time, but at least it can be done.

There now, that wasn't so bad was it?