• We’re currently investigating an issue related to the forum theme and styling that is impacting page layout and visual formatting. The problem has been identified, and we are actively working on a resolution. There is no impact to user data or functionality, this is strictly a front-end display issue. We’ll post an update once the fix has been deployed. Thanks for your patience while we get this sorted.

Windows XP's inability to remember basic preferences is profound

J

JellyBaby

Diamond Member
I'm so fed up with this. It simply will not remember the window size or status bar status (off or on) in a Windows Explorer window.

Sometimes it does, sometimes it reverts to 640x480 with no status bar. Internet Explorer windows are not as bad in this regard.

I'm sure this is "by design" but hey, MS, your design is off. :disgust:
 

JellyB,

I have been running XP for a month and have not seen your problem with screen resolutions in Win Explorer. You might try reinstalling your monitor driver and see if that makes a difference. If my system reverted to 640x480 I would be very upset. I use Explorer quite often. With a Windows keyboard you press the Windows key and press the E key at the same time runs Explorer.

It is my understanding that XP does not support the lowest VGA mode anymore so I am wondering why your system reverts to that mode by itself.


 
Microsoft has a serious problem with arrogance. Until the market decides to humble them we will have to eat all they dish out. 🙁
 
I haven't seen the changing screen resolution, but I have encountered the other things. Ocasional random rearrangement of desktop icons, forgetting preferences regarding Explorer view type, forgetting taskbar height and settings, etc. This has been occurring since Windows 95, and they still can't get it right more than 7 years later...
 
You've been very lucky, then! I've seen those problems with Windows 95, 98, NT, 2K, and XP on a wide variety of hardware. I can't give any examples describing how to reproduce it, though, since it seems to be intermittent and thus I've never found a guaranteed way to cause it.
 
Ooops, I was too vague. No, the resolution stays the same but the Explorer window will open at around 640x480 pixels instead of maximized like I want and had it set to before. It doesn't keep the status bar up, it sometimes forgets view type settings and which columns to show. Very basic problems. Why can't the best minds at MS solve them? 🙁
 

I have XP Pro and have not seen any of the screen problems you mentioned. If you resize Explorer it will open in that size next time you access it. Remembers your last setting is all. It is suppose to work that way.

One way to fix a different screen window size in XP or any Windows since Win95 is to right click on the task bar. Make sure no other program is running. After right clicking on the task bar select to either tile vertically or horizontally in the menu. If only one program like Explorer is running it will auto resize to fill the screen.

Wondering???? If some of you hate Windows so much why in heck are you running Windows in the first place??? There are enough choices for you to run another OS of your choice.


 
It is suppose to work that way.
Click to expand...

Yes, it is. However Windows occasionally seems to fall victim to a memory disorder and "forgets" preferred windows sizes and locations, Explorer view preferences and columns, taskbar preferences, icon locations on the desktop, etc etc. As I said earlier, I've seen this with every version of Windows ('cept for WinME, which I haven't used) on hardware ranging from old P133s up to more modern Athlon XP systems.

It doesn't occur frequently, or even every day. Perhaps once a week, or maybe twice that on a heavily used system.
 
While I haven't noticed in Explorer - I have noticed that in XP - I lose some keybinds in Unreal Tournament & Tactical Ops (& it's every time too) any ideas ?
 
johnlog, who said I hate Windows? If you're so sensitive about Microsoft products why don't you simply ignore the posts you don't like? There are plenty of others to choose from.

Maybe I'm hoping someone from MS will see this thread and fix Explorer. As skriefal said it's not predictable behavior so I feel it's a design flaw.

Another thing it does that I detest -- when you open two Explorer windows and copy files from one to the other for some stupid reason the source window will suddenly reposition to the target folder. Makes no sense at all.
 
have not encountered your problems. try holding ctrl while you click the x in top right of explorer - it keeps the window settings (in IE at least) across sessions.
 

I can go only by my own experiences with XP Pro. I have not seen any of the changes on screen some of you mention. My icons on the desktop have not auto changed positions ever. Right click on the desktop and select to position your icons the way you want them. I select to position the icons alphabetically. They stay in place.

The rest of the members in our computer club do not mention they are having any of the problems either that are mentioned in this thread. We have a variety of computers and CPUs running XP. My computer is an AMD Athlon running at 750 MHz. Another running ME never has a screen changing problem.

I do have one program that runs well but does cause one problem. It is Creat-A-Card Platinum 6. When you run that program it changes the desktop screen background to black and then makes all other background screen colors inactive. That is a program bug and one wonders sometimes exactly what are programmers thinking about when they create crap like that?? That has to be done on purpose but why? CAC is no longer run or used. As you can see that is NOT an XP problem because it also happened in ME.

 
i have seen some of the same problems with xp Pro.....especially the view types......i usually change my folder to view in list mode, but then if i go back to the folder, it's back to the default large icon view all over again......irritating as hell
 
I don't have this particular problem but I have my own variant where explorer windows forget their "views" setting. This is especially pronounced on the control panel. Darn explorer.
 
Mine forgets the view settings a lot too. It will revert from view as list to view by icons all the freaking time at random. Explorer in XP is a POS, 2k was much less buggy. Mine also will not allow me to manually delete incomplete .avi files for some reason. When I try, it comes up as protected, then explorer starts sucking up ram and everything chugs to a stop. Booo!
 
I HATE it when WinXP forgets the "View" settings!!! I constantly have to set the view to "Icons" for Control Panel. It keeps reverting to "Details". I have Windows Explorer set to show "Details", but some (not all) folders will occasionally revert to "Icon". Even if I set all folders to "Details", go to Control Panel and set it to "Icons", at least once a week it'll "forget" some (but not all) the previous settings.

IE6 refuses to open in a full window, even if I maximize the window, shut IE, and reopen. It REFUSES to remember the previous setting. This is B$!! :|
 
Well it looks like I'm not alone in my irritation. These are small issues but there's no excuse for them in a modern OS/application. The last thing MS needs right now is to make it more desirable to leave their camp and go to somebody else.
 
Hi!

I'm long time reader.. new to posting.

Anyways, I have seen exactly same behavior, and I don't know the fix either.
However, it is very predictable how it does it. It's dependent on how you enter
a specific folder. Also, everytime you enter that specific folder, that current setting will
over write what's there.

For example, you go to my documents using one of the shortcut you made.
Arrange the folder view settings the way you want like list mode and then
close the window. After, if you go ahead and enter my computer then change
to my document folder, it'll show up in a default mode. Close that window.
Now if you go back to my computer using the original short cut, the view will
be in default mode, instead of mode you changed to. However, if you only go
to that folder using same link, it'll not be changed. Basically, if you want a folder
to stay in same view settings, you have to enter folder exactly same way, or
set every path you go in same so that even if it's rewritten, it'll show up same again.

Hopely this makes some sense. I don't know why windows does it, but it is repeatable.
Wish it was set up better or there is a way to change settings.
 
I like having Explorer show my files / folders in the details view with the Status Bar on. So, on each new WinXP / Win2K system that I set up I open a single Windows Explorer window in a subdirectory with files in it. I set it to show the Status Bar and set it to show details. I also set up all of the other features I want like additional columns in the details view. Then I go into the Tools | Folder Options dialog's View tab. I uncheck "Remember each folder's view settings", then I click on the Apply button. Finally, I click on the "Apply to All Folders" button and OK my way out of the dialogs.

This has worked on every single system installation of Win2K Pro / Server and every single installation of WinXP HE or Pro that I've done. That's a good two dozen systems upon which this method of manually setting the Explorer views has worked consistently and perfectly. The key seems to be unchecking "Remember each folder's view settings". (It's also important to have only the one Explorer window upon and to use the "Apply to All Folders" button.)

As for Internet Explorer's startup screen size, I suspect that many of us run afoul of more than one problem here. You can cause new IE windows to be "full screen" by simply opening a single IE window and manually resizing it (in the "Restore Down" mode) to the full size of the screen. Quit the IE window. From then on new instances should fill your screen. It's cheating, but it works. The only problem is when you run across a Web site that uses a script that resizes your browser window to your screen res. I like having my browser Windows open at 1024x768 on a 1600x1200 or 1400x1050 screen res. Those Web sites that use this trick annoy the heck out of me because I don't want my damned browser filling all of that real estate. Eh, to each his own.

- Collin
 
If I uncheck "Remember each folder's view settings", then all folders will have the same view, which is a fix for some, but is NOT what I am talking about. I WANT each folder to have it's own view setting, such as Control Panel which I like set to Icon, and Explorer which I want set to Detail w/ Status Bar.

Something else I noticed. I made a shortcut on my Desktop to Anandtech forums. I click on it, and IE6 would open a window at about 1/2 full-screen size. I maximize the window and shut it. I click on the shortcut again, and again it opens at 1/2 size, NOT full size, which was the previous setting before I last closed IE6. Now, if I click on the shortcut, maximize the window, and create a new shortcut (copy/paste from the IE6 address bar), the new shortcut will open in a full window. The shortcut has it's own settings for window size which I cannot for the life of me find out how to change without simply creating a new shortcut from a maximized window. This is just frustrating...
 
XP home has been running smooth for me for the past several months, I've noticed no such issues. I find people tend to blame their oversights on their computer/OS far too much...
 
I've been running XP Pro for 7 months now, and I didn't notice it at first. WhoDeeny, you should try to observe the obvious problem before you jump to the conclusion that the problem is caused by the loose nut between the chair and the monitor 😛 (operator error).
 
Boobers,

I wouldn't know about the operating system's ability to maintain the individual view settings for different folders since I've never been interested in that feature. However, I just tested Internet Explorer under the conditions you mentioned, and my copies (on the three machines sitting here) do not behave the way you suggest. If I close the browser when it is maximized, then when I reopen the browser I get another maximized instance of the browser. I don't recall this being the case at times in the past. I do remember a recent Windows update (within the past month) which was supposed to deal with various rendering issues of the OS. I wonder if this may have changed the default behavior of the system.

If I get time I'll play with changing default Explorer view preferences to see if these systems behave similarly to yours.

BTW, while some of us argue about whether some particular behavior may be the "fault" of the OS or the end user, there's certainly another possibility. It's possible that the installation of some plug-ins and other third party software may also affect these behaviors in Win2K and WinXP. I've helped friends who installed "helpers" that drove Internet Explorer right around the bend, interface-behavior-wise. When I read about the widely varying experiences of different people with this OS' GUI I have to wonder if at least some of that variation may be due to differences in the software installed on their systems. I, too, would be tempted to blame the OS or the browser if it were not for the fact that I've witnessed such absolutely consistent behavior on the systems with which I've dealt. But I am a real stick-in-the-mud with respect to what I install on my systems. That could mean that I'm not invoking all of the possible adverse effects of third party software upon GUI behavior.

- Collin
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

TRENDING THREADS

Back
Top