How to remove contextual display in File Explorer

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I’ve been looking for this answer without success. Hopefully someone here can help.

I’m (unwillingly) moving from Win XP Pro to Win 8.1 Pro on a new desktop PC. I’m gradually learning my way around the new OS and trying to set it up the way I want. Right now, here’s what I can’t figure out:

I want File Explorer to display all files the same way, just like Win XP does. By default, I want the icon, the filename including extension, the filesize, the type, and the date modified regardless of what type of file it is (mp3, for example). Is there any way to do that without customizing the view of each folder individually?

Thanks in advance if anyone can help.

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Richard,

Check out this SevenForums article. HTH :cheers:

May the Forces of good computing be with you!

RG

PowerShell & VBA Rule!
Computer Specs

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You don’t need to download some script or bat file….Windows 8 does this natively. Open up file explorer, open your documents folder, in the upper right hand corner below to the red X click on the little down arrow. Now select view, in current view tab (should be right in the middle of the tab row) select “group by” then select your preference. You will need to do this for all your folders. Other than that you should have no problems.

Note: if you’re have problems navigating through windows 8, you can use a 3rd party software to give you the look and feel of windows XP/7.

Classic Shell and it’s free.

Start8 it’s a 30 day trial period and $4.99 to buy….I bought it, I prefer it to Classic shell.

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I want the icon, the filename including extension, the filesize, the type, and the date modified regardless of what type of file it is (mp3, for example). Is there any way to do that without customizing the view of each folder individually?

The extension can be seen by clicking on the view tab and selecting ‘File name extensions’.
To change music folders, right click on the directory and choose properties. On the customise tab click ‘Optimise this folder for:’ and choose e.g. documents. Select ‘apply template to all subfolders’. You can do this for any of the other folders. When in a folder, click on the view tab and hover over the various layouts – it will change to what you’re hovering over. Click whichever view you want.

Note that Music, Picture and Video folder defaults have selections specific to those files, so could be useful. Note as well that hovering over any file will show a tooltip with relevant information.

I’m sure that with this start, you can massage the views to your taste.

Eliminate spare time: start programming PowerShell

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Once you have your view customized there is also the option to click on the view tab and then the Options icon over on the right side will bring up the familiar folder options window with the view tab where you can click on the apply to all folders (of that type) button.

I have most folders set to one customized set of details view and that’s all I use. Once in a while I’ll change the document type for a folder (to Documents) but only if it contains a very large number of files, so that it will open and display the files much more quickly that it otherwise would.

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Very helpful. Thank you all.

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