Windows Explorer behaviour in the right pane - stop column jumping to the left

The Explorer window is not maximised as this would take up too much screen real estate required for other programs or folder views though if maximised the behaviour is the same.

The before and after click screen shots below illustrates the issue. 

Please ignore the fact that these are Win 7 explorer windows as the behaviour in both 7 and 10 is the same but my current employer is still on win7 which is where I am posting from.

In the shots when the item was clicked, due to the narrow columns and short folder names, the automatic scrolling actually scrolled 1.5 columns to the right and the cursor ended up over empty space meaning the second click of a double click resulted in no further movement however if the columns had been wider due to longer names the second click would have scrolled things further to the right.

I am thinking that the issue is not being understood.

This is not behavior from any one PC this is standard windows behavior experienced on every Windows machine I have utilised since Windows 7, which is hundreds of PC's as I spent several years working IT support for a large organisation, working with devices running windows7 through to windows 10. I have have never been bothered to pursue a solution to this issue until now though it was the primary reason that I stuck with Windows XP for my personal machine until after XP's commercial support was ended and then I went straight to Win8 for its vastly superior performance and limited resource usage compared to vista and win7 (never really understood the issues people had with win8 as every thing was still thereit just locked a little different).

If a folder contains say 100 files and the explorer displays them as "list" window is resized so there are 10 files in each column and 2 and a half columns can be seen (half of the 3rd column our of the window), when any file in the 3rd column clicked on it is selected and Explorer will automatically scroll to the right so that the files in the 3rd column are fully visible and away from where the where the mouse has just clicked. If in the situation described the user tries to double click, ie open a partially visible item in the 3rd column,  explorer will select the item on the first click and scroll right then the second click with the mouse cursor  which is still at the same  physical location on the screen will be on an item in the newly half visible 4th column which will once clicked result in explorer once more scrolling to the right so the 4th column is fully visible and the 5th column is partially visible. At this point in the example the original file is 2 columns away from where the cursor is and due to the rapid automatic scrolling my eyes have to re-locate on screed the originally intended target file and then then move the cursor back to the file.

In the event that there is only one and a half columns visible due needing to see many windows at once and so having to limit the explorer window size then the intended target file of a double click is no longer even on screen as due to explorer have automatically scrolled 2 columns to the right.

Thank you for your detailed response. As you may already know, and based on the screenshots that you have provided, this behavior has been existing since Windows 7, and now in Windows 10. At this point, we suggest that you go ahead and follow the steps that were previously provided on this thread to submit your experience on Feedback Hub. This will enable our engineers and software developers to know the challenges that our customers are having with our products.

Should you feel the need to post back, don’t hesitate to do so.

We appreciate all the information that you provided. Just to clarify, have you tried to maximize the window when trying to select a specific file? If possible can you end us a screenshot of the window? 

Since this is a feature of Windows, we suggest that you post your concerns using the Feedback Hub application on your computer. You can either vote on an existing submission or submit a new issue. When you submit a feedback item, we gather additional details and information about your issue that will help determine what is causing it and address it. Feedback items regularly receive Microsoft responses on the submissions in the Feedback application, so you can see what we are doing about it. Please revisit frequently to see the status of your feedback items: 

1. On your Windows 10 device, search for Feedback Hub in the Cortana Search box, and launch the application.
2. Navigate to Feedback in the left menu, then press + Add new feedback.
3. Select the Problem, share any details you think are relevant, and choose an appropriate category and subcategory.
4. Important: If possible, reproduce the issue after clicking Begin monitoring (or Start capture) near the end of the form; Stop monitoring when you are done.
5. Once you have completed the form and monitoring, click Submit.
6. Click Continue using Feedback Hub.
7. Click My feedback at the top, and find the item you submitted (it may take a while to appear).
8. Open the item you submitted, then click Share.
9. Click Copy link, then paste the link here in your response (it will look like *https://aka.ms* link>)

Regards.

Hello,

Currently running applications on your PC may be one of the possible reasons why you're having this issue with your Windows Explorer. To better assist you, please answer the following:

• Which specific build and version of Windows are you using? To check, please click this link.
• What troubleshooting steps have you done so far?
• Is this happening to all files when selecting in columns?

Changing the view on your Windows Explorer may help in troubleshooting the issue. We suggest that you check this link, this page contains instructions on how to change the column settings in Windows Explorer.