Apply a Specified View to All Folders

Windows XP allows you to choose how to view the contents of individual folders. By clicking "View" on a folder's menu bar, you can choose to view the folder's contents as thumbnails, tiles, icons, a plain list or a list with details. (Image folders will have an extra view, "Filmstrip").

Changing the view will only apply to the folder you are currently working in. However, with just a few more clicks, you can change the view for all the folders on your computer.

Here's how:

Open any folder, click "View" and choose the view you would most like to use.
Click "Tools" and then click "Folder Options".
In the "Folder Options" window, click the "View" tab.
Click "Apply to All Folders".
A confirmation message should appear. Click "Yes".
Click "OK" to exit the "Folder Options" window.

Now all the folders on your computer should display contents in your chosen view. As before, you can still change the view in individual folders via the "View" button.

To reverse the change, follow the procedure outlined above but click "Reset All Folders" in step 4. Folder views will then be reset to their defaults.

Note:
As mentioned above, image folders such as those in "My Pictures" will probably have "Filmstrip" as an extra view option. Filmstrip is a great way to view pictures in a folder because it provides a large preview of images and offers other options specific to image files. Naturally, it is not an appropriate view for non-image folder content such as text files since no preview can be generated. If you are working in an image folder, you could select "Filmstrip" as the view for all the folders on your computer by following the procedure outlined above. While this should do no harm, choosing "Filmstrip" for all folders is probably not a wise choice because it is inappropriate and unwieldy for viewing non-image content.

XP Tips - Computer Tips for Windows XP