How to prevent explorer assuming you want to display audio as music / media view! Inability to apply this at to all subfolders! I am a sound designer and this is so frustrating!

Short answer: Use WinSetView to set your preferred folder view defaults once and for all.

See here for more details: WinSetView (Tool to Globally Set Explorer Folder Views)

Long answer:

Some of the issues you're seeing are due to Windows 11 folder view bugs. The video below demonstrates those bugs, but the brief explanation is that on your "Local Disks", Windows 11 will not let you override it's automatically detected folder type. On Windows 10, you most certainly can override the detected type and set a folder tree to type General items, Documents, Music, Pictures, or Videos, regardless of folder content. Also on Windows 11, you cannot set the folder type at all for a whole folder tree on a removable drive. That is, the folders remain stuck at General items. You may be able to set the folder type one folder at a time.

However, those issues are not a showstopper for you because, if I understand correctly, you just want the same view regardless of the folder type. Therefore, what you need is a tool that will let you set the default view for all folder types in one go. Using the "Apply to Folders" button is not going to cut it. You will have to repeat that procedure for every folder type and it will NOT reset the views for file open/save dialogs. That's why I wrote a tool to set the defaults. Use it if you value your sanity.

https://youtu.be/U5eEFNZEWZg

After all of that there is a very simple solution that hit me.

How I thought the system worked by choosing a way I wanted to view my folders and applying it to all subfolders is not actually how Windows works.

What you want to do is:

1. GO to a MUSIC folder (showing Track #, Contributing Artists, Title.. etc)
2. Change the Columns IN THAT folder to how you want it to look
3. Go to Folder Options and View and click APPLY TO FOLDERS.

So simple but not intuitive!

It is purely that Windows assumes that a folder containing music is a music folder. You need to change the Assumptions' View. Not change the Assumption!

Kicked my butt and humbled.

Hi Greg,

Firstly thankyou for taking the time to reply and help out.

I took a look at each of those help pages and even performed the Registry fixes to the MRUBag Size

I rebooted and then have applied the folder customization on

1. the Music folder under This PC
2. Root Drive level of D:
3. Folder containing only audio files

I have opened options and RESET folders and applied. Then proceeded to apply the General Settings and then opened Options and apply to folders.

This also did not resolve the issue.

None of them applied the custom settings to any subfolders as the property check box says it will.

There really should be an option to have a standard folder setting applied to the entire system not requiring any folders to remember their own preferences. This should be a system level option to ignore this frustrating assumption Microsoft has made.

Hello, I'm Greg, here to help you with this.

If you store these files outside of the typical Shell User folders (Music, Documents, Pictures, Downloads, etc) and some place like C: or externally, does it still force the unwanted folder view?

Here are all ways to customize Folder View which is supposed to be fully customizable, then troubleshoot if it won't save your customized Folder View:

https://thegeekpage.com/how-to-set-folder-view-...

https://www.teachucomp.com/change-the-view-of-a...

https://www.elevenforum.com/t/change-folder-lay...

(The great thing about MVP Shawn Brink's tutorials is that he is normally the best expert on the subjects he writes about, and is usually easily accessible in the Comments section of his tutorials where you can contact him if you need further help.)

https://www.thewindowsclub.com/windows-7-forget...

(Avoid ad links which intrude into editorial copy, especially DO NOT INSTALL Restoro, PC Repair Tool and Reimage ads)

Feel free to ask back any questions. Based on the detailed results you post back, I will have other suggestions if necessary.

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Where are the results of the steps I took my time to carefully write out for you that work for most others? I am standing by here to help you further, but I need to know the specific results so I know what else to try.

This is an interactive process. I give steps to perform, you do each one and then report back results until something works, so I know what to suggest next. If you need help performing any step, just ask back. But please do not skip any steps. We often find out the skipped step is the fix.