Windows Library View Settings

Question

I really like to use the Windows libraries, because - as an example - my music files are located in several different folders on several different hard drives. I have gone through the tiresome process of making sure that my music files are properly tagged.

Now I want to access my music files over the music library in Windows Explorer. By default (that is with a completely new installation of Windows 7) my music library is set to sort the files by folders. Something I obviously don't want. So I change it to sort by Artist. Work fine, too, but the moment I close my current Windows Explorer windows or change to another path on my computer these changes oo how the music library should organize my music files disappear. Next time I open the music library it agai sorts everything by folders and I have to make the changes for the settings again.

The same applies for the other libraries (Picture and Video) as well. Which is very annoying since I have to customize my libraries again and again each time I want to use them!

I tried to look a bit further and found out that Windows Explorer saves the settings of how to display a folder, or a library in your registry. I also found the some registry keys for e.g. the music library where the view modes (Sort by Artist, Sort by Album, Sort by Title, etc.) are defined. But I have been unable to find registry keys that set which behavior the Explorer should use, and I do not want to just experiment with my registry keys without knowing what those keys do exactly...

Also I tried to google this error, but my search is still unsuccessful. However I cannot really believe that I'm the only person with that problem. Especially since I have that problem since the beginning of my Windows 7 installation. Meaning saving my personal customization settings of my libraries have never worked yet!

Answer 1

Exactly.  When you use the Arrange By command, it should be writing your selection to that file. I'm afraid I don't know the syntax to edit it manually.  It's possible something is corrupt in that file.  You might try re-creating that library (or deleting it and right-clicking the Libraries header to restore the default ones) and see if it begins saving correctly.

My only other thought is that somehow the security permissions were changed and the system is no longer able to write to those library definitions to save your choice.

Answer 2

Because libraries are totally self-contained, nothing about how they look or operate is controlled by the registry.  This is also why you can set a view for a folder (a real folder, like C:\users\Fredrik\music) but then it look different when you open the Music library.  Sure it shows the same files, but it's using the Library's layout rules, not the folder.  The folder rules are still remembered, just not used when you're in the library.

So to keep the library always laid out like you want, you'll have to remember to never go to the folder directly, always the Library link, such as from the start menu.

Ok... Thanks for the fast reply! To know that the libraries' view settings are not controlled by the registry is an important thing to know...

However point is: I always open the library via the links in Windows Explorer! As I mentioned above I have my files spread out over many different folders and I have absolutely no intrest in expanding the Music library node in the Windows Explorer tree view (on the left). That's exactly the problem! I'm set the settings on the root level of the library, i.e. the library itself (Explorer shows "Libraries" -> "Music" with a blue note in front of all that). Me, for example I have Windows Explorer pinned to my taskbar, and when I click on the WIndows Explorer icon the Explorer will always show the libraries know folder where it lists all libraries and I usually just double-click on one of those icons shown there (e.g. "Music")...

I actually opened the music.library-ms file in my AppData\Roaming... folder and found the XML like you said... Is it here where the Library stores its view settings? Because then I could just manually set the values here, no problem with that... Problem is I suspect I have to add another property-element in the propertyStore node. But what would be the name attribute for that property? I didn't find anything in the msdn documentation of the library description schema...

Answer 3

Libraries are not folders, they just look like them.  Similar to how ZIP files are totally different than a folder, but also look like they're the same.

Libraries are actually XML files that define two things; where to search for stuff, and how to lay out the results.

Because libraries are totally self-contained, nothing about how they look or operate is controlled by the registry.  This is also why you can set a view for a folder (a real folder, like C:\users\Fredrik\music) but then it look different when you open the Music library.  Sure it shows the same files, but it's using the Library's layout rules, not the folder.  The folder rules are still remembered, just not used when you're in the library.

So to keep the library always laid out like you want, you'll have to remember to never go to the folder directly, always the Library link, such as from the start menu.