Fixing Folder Type Problems in Windows Vista

Occasionally Windows Vista may assign incorrect template for folders if the content sniffing goes wrong or the folder view settings in the registry are messed up. For example, when you open a folder containing text files, Windows may incorrectly assign it the Music template, and thereby showing all the irrelevant columns such as Artist Name, Album Title, Track Number, Genre etc. Note that the folder type problem was seen in Windows XP as well, and this continues on to Windows Vista.

Fig 1: Folder contains text files, but the task pane shows the Play all button.

FIXING THE FOLDER TYPE TEMPLATE

You can fix this problem on a per-folder basis using these steps:

1. Open the folder which has incorrect template assigned

2. Right-click on a empty area on the folder and choose Properties

3. Click the Customize tab

4. Under Use this folder type as a template, select the appropriate item from the list box.

Fig 2: Available folder type templates.

5. Click OK.

RESETTING THE FOLDER VIEWS en masse

If there are large number of folders experiencing this problem, you can reset the entire saved folder views in the registry. The values are stored under the following key:

To reset the saved folder views, download resetfolderviews_vista.reg and save to Desktop. Close all Explorer windows. Right-click on the REG file and choose Merge. Click Yes when prompted for confirmation.

Alternately, you can also open the Registry Editor (regedit.exe) directly and delete the Bags value manually.

Note: This not only resets the Folder Type template (FolderType & SniffedFolderType vales), but also clears the individual folder views, window size and other related settings. You can always customize them again!

DISABLE FOLDER CONTENTS SNIFFING

You can prevent Windows from sniffing folder contents and automatically assigning the folder type template. This is done by creating the following registry key using Registry Editor (alternately you can use the Registry fix below).

After creating the above key, create a new String (REG_SZ) value named FolderType and set its Value data to NotSpecified.

NotSpecified value data corresponds to All Items folder type template (See Fig 2 above).

REGISTRY FIX

You can use the nofoldersniff.reg to automate the above registry setting.

WHAT HAPPENS NOW?

After applying the above registry setting, when you open a folder for the first time, Windows looks for the AllFolders registry key and if it’s present, it reads the folder type template from there. So every new folder will have the All Items folder type template assigned irrespective of what content the folder has. Again, you can can customize the folder type template if you need to, on a per-folder basis, using the Customize tab as explained previously in this article.

Note: Existing folders whose FolderType setting was already assigned prior to applying the above registry setting, are not affected and continue to have the existing folder type template.

This registry setting does not prevent you from customizing the individual folder views and other settings.

This method works in Windows XP as well. Note that the Bags location differs in Windows XP. It’s stored in this location:

SEE ALSO

Common Tasks does not match folder type in Windows XP - by Keith Miller

Copyright © 2008 Ramesh Srinivasan. All rights reserved.