Window View setting won't stick

Somehow one of my folder view settings got changed recently. I've made the following choices:

Windows classic view
Open each folder in its own window
Remember each folder's view setting
Show Status Bar

All those selections work as I wish except that one of the folder view settings won't stick. The thing I'm having trouble with is the Toolbars menu. The Standard Buttons option for some reason defaults to being checked and I don't want that toolbar showing. When I uncheck it it disappears OK, but when I close that window and then reopen it the Standard Buttons toolbar is back again and the menu selection has a check by it again. And that's the way all folder windows are opening now. How do I get that toolbar setting (Standard Buttons unchecked) to stick?

I have almost all folders displaying in the Details mode, but two of them I want in the Icons mode, so I'm leery of the Apply to All Folders button in Folder Options.

Solution?

Details for my system are in my signature, below

 

Hey BOBBO,

This site sounds good. Might be a good bookmark?

 

Bmoore1129: Thanks for replying.

The post at the site your link leads to sounded promising, so I did a RegEdit as recommended. Actually, I had to also go to the MS KB link there to clear up some procedure questions. Bottom line: It didn't work. Folder view changes still don't stick. I thought maybe I had to reboot. Did that, still no joy. I checked RegEdit to see if the changes I made survived the reboot, and they're still there.

At the MS KB site is a line saying, "This problem was first corrected in Windows XP SP2." I have SP2, but I wonder if they're saying the BagMRU Size limitation was already fixed by SP2 and I didn't need to make the RegEdit change? Whatever, my folder view changes still won't stick.

Looking again at Folder Options, I see that the Apply to All Folders button brings up this: "Set all folders ... to match the current folder's view settings (except for toolbars and folder tasks)." It's the toolbar settings I want to change, so that route won't work, either.

Any thoughts?

 

BOBBO--Anything here of use?
http://www.google.com/search?source...en&q=Windows+folder+view+settings+won't+stick

 

Welshjim: Checked out your link. I found the same sort of thing when I did a Google search before opening this thread -- lots of references to the Mac OS or to the Details vs Icons views. Toolbars seem to be a different matter, and that's what I'm having trouble with. After the third Google page the entries shift to other topics, so I went to ...

PeteC: Post #4 did indeed look promising. I did the RegEdit and then tested the results. No improvement. So I rebooted. Same unsatisfactory result. I was really surprised, because that fix seemed tailor-made for my problem. Even went back into RegEdit to make sure the modification was still there. It was. Wonder why it didn't work. Would it make any difference whether the Base choice is Hexadecimal or Decimal? The former seems to be the default, so that's the way I did it. Wary of blindly experimenting in RegEdit when I really don't know what I'm doing or what disaster I might cause.

 

Did you try the highest setting suggested (8000)?

Incidentally, you can set change this setting using TweakUI rather than manually. It works fine that way also. You'll see it listed under Explorer > Customizations.

 

surferdude2: My RegEdit change was from 400 to 5000. Thought that should suffice.

I checked TweakUI and couldn't find the Explorer > Customizations you mentioned. Wondered why, suspected difference between XP HE (mine) and XP Pro (yours?). Then suspected different TweakUI versions. Discovered mine was 2.00.1.0 and there's a 2.10 available. Downloaded and installed it, found Customizations, saw it was set at 400. Why not the 5000 I'd set it to yesterday? Changed it to 8000 and exited. Opened some folders and tried the toolbar change. Wouldn't stick. Need to reboot? Rebooted, opened some folders, Standard Buttons toolbar still there, changed it in several folders, closed them, reopened them, SB toolbar still there. Failure!

Problem not solved yet, but I did get my TweakUI updated. Glad about that.

 

Try downloading and running either the exe or vbs file on this page. Line 3, left side.

Restore Missing Toolbars EXE ToolbarRepair.Exe or VBS

I know they aren't missing, but give it a try anyway.

 

Zander: No luck. I tried the EXE file first and then the VBS file. Neither worked. I noticed the file that adds the TweakUI icon to Control Panel and downloaded and ran it, and it didn't work, either. I tried it again and that time it worked. So I tried the EXE file and then the VBS file again, but again neither of them worked.

Surprisingly stubborn problem, isn't it?

 

Close any open explorer windows.

Start, Run, regedit

Navigate to:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Toolbar

For Windows Explorer: In the right pane, locate the Explorer sub-key and open it. In the right pane, locate the ITBarLayout value. Right click this value and select Delete.

Exit regedit.

Open Windows Explorer.
( For Windows Explorer, in Windows XP Home Edition, it may be necessary to re-enable the Address bar in Windows Explorer. To do this open Windows Explorer. Then right click a blank area of the Toolbar or Menu bar and select the Address bar item.)

Set the Toolbar selection(s) as you wish.

IMPORTANT: Do a File, Close to exit explorer.

(You should do a File, Close rather than click the red-
X at top right Anytime you want to make persistent changes in Explorer settings.)

Reopen and test.

Note that this is not a BAG issue. The toolbar setting is the same for all Views.

 

Bill: An interesting development. In RegEdit I got down to Internet Explorer and when I highlighted Toolbar an Error Opening Key message popped up: "Cannot open Toolbar: Error while opening key." What's that all about?

BTW, I tried closing some Explorer windows with File,Close after unchecking the Standard Buttons toolbar option and it didn't make any difference. The toolbar was back when I reopened the folders.

 

There is clearly a permission set on the registry key, and there should not be. At least for you as an Administrator user.

Start, Run, regedit
Navigate to:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Toolbar

Right click, Permissions
Click Add, click Advanced, and then click Find Now

Locate the Group 'Users'
Click on this once.
Click OK, click OK
The Group Users now appears in the Permissions box. Highlight Users. Click Full Control.

Repeat for:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Toolbar
. Explorer
. WebBrowser
. ShellBrowser

You unlikely have to delete any keys. The permissions issue was sufficient to prevent you making a persistent change in the Toolbars. (But still do a File, Close to tell Explorer any change is persistent.)

 

Bill: I printed out your instructions to be sure I could follow them. All went well until I got to Highlight 'Users' and click Full Control. Clicking on the words causes the empty box under Full Control, Allow to get ready for something. If I click on that box an X appears in it, but if I then click on either Allow or OK, a Security window pops up: "Unable to save permission changes to Toolbars. Access is denied." I tried several alternatives and combinations, but nothing worked. They all resulted in that error message.

I then tried to just go ahead with your "Repeat for:" instructions but couldn't figure out how. Do those next steps require the successful completion of admission to the Toolbar key?

Something I'd like clarified -- you have me doing the RegEdit in the Miscrosoft\Internet Explorer section. Is that the right one? It's Windows Explorer folder toolbars I'm trying to get control of, not Internet Explorer. Same thing?

 

Please do not blame me for where the registry holds the Windows Explorer toolband information. The key I gave you is correct.

I am assuming you are logged in as an Administrator-type user?

If so, there is no reason on earth you should have permissions issues on the registry hives that make up HKEY_CURRENT_USER.

Test:

Create a new username using Control Panel, User Accounts.
Logon as the new user. Logoff.
Logon as Administrator.
Follow the instructions in this KB article, carefully, to copy the profile from the problem user to the new user we just created. http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=811151

Logon as the new user. Can (Remember File, Close) the Toolbar setting be made persistent now?

 

Bill: Sorry you felt I was blaming you. I wasn't. As you say, "there is no reason on earth you should have permissions issues," so I wondered if there was an innocent mix-up behind the permissions block. No offense intended.

Yes, your assumption is correct. I am logged on as the Administrator.

I printed out your latest instructions as well as the MS KB link you included. I created a new user account. That took some time to do and more time to configure (to Windows classic view so I could see and manage things as I'm accustomed to having them, and some program icons on the Desktop, etc.) so I could do a few things with it. Interestingly, the Standard Buttons toolbar stays gone in that account when I uncheck it in View. If we could just figure out a simple way to get that to work in my original account! I opened RegEdit while in that account and found something else interesting. Down at the Internet Explorer\Toolbar level, there's no Explorer sub-key. There is a ShellBrowser sub-key, however, and it does contain the ITBarLayout value line you mentioned. Significant?

In the RegEdit Permissions area that I unsuccessfully worked in earlier, there were several items listed in addition to "Users," including some variations on my name. Would working with one of them instead be a way to make the change we need?

I haven't proceeded any further yet. Doing so will involve a lot of complications I'd prefer to avoid if some of the information I mentioned above gives a clue to how we might avoid them.

 

If you had followed the MSFT instructions on copying from the original user profile to the new user profile, all the desktop settings would magicly be created the next time you logged in as the newly created user. That in part is what the copying of the profile information is all about.

As to why no "Explorer" subkey yet under Toolbars? The change would likely happen when user settings are saved at logoff and not prior to that.

Can this original profile be saved? My concern is that the permissions issues you are seeing are decidedly not normal. This is an indication, I believe, of some potentially deep-rooted registry issues. I must admit a more benign possibility exists: that you have installed some Internet Security Suite, or anti-spyware program that locks certain areas of the registry to prevent malware from changing the entries. The possibiliites are large for this: SpyBot's Tea timer, Spyware Sweeper, AVG Anti-spyware, Norton Internet Security, and several others lock various registry sections to prevent malware from messing with the settings.

If that is true in your instance, then you need to relax these gaurds, whatever they might be, in order to alow a persistent change in the Toolbar behavior.

If you are not running anything like this, then do the profile copy as suggested in the MSFT KB article I linked earlier, and keep using the new profile instead of the possibly damaged original profile from now on.

 

Bill: Hoping to avoid the complications of creating a new profile, I first worked on your suggestion that a malware program might be making RegEdit trouble. I deleted Spybot and then AVG (which had been disabled anyway). Tried the Reg fix, no luck.

So went ahead with creating a new user profile according to the MS KB instructions for Win XP Home Edition. The good news: The Standard Buttons toolbar now stays gone when I reopen a folder. So that problem seems fixed. The bad news: The User profile and configuration settings didn't transfer well. Some came through, some didn't. So I'm in the midst of rebuilding it. Along with that, my browser profile doesn't seem to be fitting in successfully. I'd copied the entire Profile folder to a different HDD partition just in case, and then afterward copied it into where I thought it should go, but NS (my browser and e-mail client) doesn't know it's there. I'm having to use my old user account to submit this post.

Somewhere something didn't work as it should. I appreciate your patience in helping through all this. I now await suggestions for what to do next.

 

Method #1: Change Permissions

First, download, unzip and move to \Windows\System32 the file:

SUBINACL.EXE :
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=e8ba3e56-d8fe-4a91-93cf-ed6985e3927b

Second, open notepad, and copy/paste the following:

subinacl /subkeyreg HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE /grant=administrators=f /grant=owner=f /grant=system=f
subinacl /subkeyreg HKEY_CURRENT_USER /grant=administrators=f /grant=owner=f /grant=system=f
subinacl /subkeyreg HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT /grant=administrators=f /grant=owner=f /grant=system=f

cls

Do a File, Save as, C:\fix_reg.cmd

Third, do a Start, Run, cmd
Type:
C:
CD \
fix_reg.cmd

Reboot when finished. And test.

Method #2: For XP Home, with only one user now defined:

Start the computer and begin tapping the F8 function key. You should at some point see the Advanced Boot Options Menu. Select Safe Mode.

1. Log on as the Administrator or as a user with administrator credentials.
2. Click Start, and then click Control Panel.
3. Click User Accounts.
4. Under Pick a task, click Create a new account.
5. Type a name for the user information, and then click Next. Make this a name not previously used.
6. Click an account type, and then click Create Account.
7. Repeat Steps #3 -- #6, creating a new Administrator user call AdminTemp

Start, Logoff
Start, Logon as the new user account name. (This creates the structure for the new Profile and is a critical step).
Start, Logoff
Start, Logon as AdminTemp (otherwise we cannot copy the old user profile)

Do not worry about any desktop settings. This AdminTemp user is only necessary for the next step and will then be removed.

1. Loging on as AdminTemp allows use to be a user other than the user whose profile you are copying files to or from.
2. In Windows Explorer, click Tools, click Folder Options, click the View tab, click Show hidden files and folders, click to clear the Hide protected operating system files check box, and then click OK.
3. Locate the C:\Documents and Settings\Old_Username folder, where C is the drive on which Windows XP is installed, and Old_Username is the name of the profile you want to copy user data from.
4. Press and hold down the CTRL key while you click each file and subfolder in this folder, except the following files:

• Ntuser.dat
• Ntuser.dat.log
• Ntuser.ini

5. On the Edit menu, click Copy.
6. Locate the C:\Documents and Settings\New_Username folder, where C is the drive on which Windows XP is installed, and New_Username is the name of the user profile that you first created in the "Create a New User Profile" section. This is not AdminTemp.
7. On the Edit menu, click Paste.
8. Restart the computer in Normal mode, and then log on as the new user.

Your desktop should be there just as it used to be. There may be some minor settings changes not brought over, but in the main you should be okay.

Important Exception:
Programs that use identities, such as Outlook Express, or similar identity protected programs will require you to Import the older mail stores and settings. See: You must import your e-mail messages and addresses to the new user profile before you delete the old profile. For more information, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

313055 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/313055/) OLEXP: Mail folders, address book, and e-mail messages are missing after you upgrade to Microsoft Windows XP

See the documentation for your email or other problem program as to how to restore from a backup. (Your files are still there in your original profile, so a true backup is not needed. But the principle is the same).

You can use the Control Panel, User Account applet to remove the temporary user AdminTemp.

 

Bill: With all the new User accounts, the 16 GB C:\ partition in my HDD shrunk from having 24% of free space to only 3% and I couldn't run a defrag last night. So today I deleted all but my original main account before beginning your latest suggestions.

Ran into a possible snag. When I downloaded the SUBINACL.EXE file you mentioned in Method #1, I noticed it was intended only for XP Pro, not XP HE. I installed it anyway, did the Second step, then tried the Third step. I'm not sure it worked right. When I entered fix_reg.cmd and clicked Enter, the window immediately closed and reopened with just a C:\> prompt showing. Significant? When I rebooted and tried a RegEdit permissions change in the Toolbars sub-key, I got the same old admission denied message. And the Standard Buttons toolbar still reappears. Is Method #1 a lost cause?