Annoying default settings

I have never quite liked the way Microsoft wants me to use Windows Explorer. The standard settings are quite annoying to me, but I understand why they are as they are on end user versions of Windows. Joe User is stupid, usually more so than you might imagine possible, so it is important to protect him against himself. On a server on the other hand, I would think we should anticipate some minimal knowledge about the file system. A server user should be able to look at a system file without thinking: “Hmm, bootmgr is a file I haven’t seen before. I should probably delete it. And that big windows folder just contains a lot of strange files I never use. I’m deleting some of those too, it will leave more room for pictures of my cat!”. But no, it has the same stupid defaults as the home editions. Because of this, I have had to create a list of all the stuff I have to remember to change whenever I log on to a new server, lest I go insane and maul the next poor user who want’s me to recover the database he “forgot” to back up before the disk crashed. Smilefjes som rekker tunge

 

Navigation pane sync

Fore some reason I am unable to fathom, Microsoft, in it’s infinite wisdom, has made sync between the folder tree and the main explorer pane optional. Then they made the brilliant decision to turn it off by default. I noticed this when I deleted the corrupt favorites in the profile of user x, instead of user y whose profile I mistakenly thought I was browsing. This turned a five minute quick fix into a three hour gig involving interns running around searching for backup tapes.

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I can only guess at how many users have done the same, and I dare not think about the unnecessary burden this places on help desks around the world. Luckily, it is possible to turn the option back on again.

Alt, Tools, Folder Options, or View, Options in 2012:

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Or you could use a GPO, adding these registry settings:

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Of course you could use another file explorer, there are a lot of good alternatives out there. Sadly though, that explorer would have to be installed on every machine you work on, so unless you have the ability to deploy it automatically (and the power to decide what gets deployed) it gets a bit impractical. More so if you manage >100 servers in more than one domain. And to be honest, the Windows Explorer does an OK job, as long as the settings are correct.

Show all files

As mentioned, some of the files and folders are hidden from the prying eyes of us mere mortal users. Luckily, this to can be mended (showing the files that is, not the mortality):

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Launch Folder windows in a separate process gives you the advantage of a responsive interface if a window is stalled waiting for a bad drive or a slow/missing network share. The window connected to the troublesome location is still stalled, but you are able to open other folders in another window, and it won’t affect the task bar if explorer.exe should crash.

Taskbar on WIN 2008 R2, 2012, 7 and 8

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With this they have gone completely of the reservation. The idea is stolen from Mac OS, and I don’t like it there either. It is completely impossible to discern open applications unless you hover over the icon/group. And you have to learn all the icons, some of which are quite similar on server applications. As if that wasn’t enough, the icons are twice as big, making the task bar take up twice as much screen real-estate. Actually, it’s using more space to give me less information. and this is supposed to be progress? Luckily, I can elect to be “reactionary” and disable this. Locate the “Taskbar and Start Menu properties” window and configure as shown:

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“Use small icons” reclaims the screen real-estate, and “Combine when taskbar is full” gives me the benefits of the new grouping function when I need it. This stacks applications when it is no longer possible to show any useful information about each individual application on the taskbar.

In Win 2012:

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It is also possible to configure this in registry or via GPO:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Advanced]
"TaskbarGlomLevel"=dword:00000001
"TaskbarSmallIcons"=dword:00000001

Notification area / task tray

Sometimes you might want to show all icons in the notification area. Let’s say you have virtual machines and want a quick way to see if vmware tools are installed, or to make sure antivirus software is in place. This could also take up a lot of screen real-estate, but on servers the number of icons are usually relatively small. There is a GPOfor this: image

Or you can set it in the registry by setting the following value to 0:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\EnableAutoTray

2012 Update

I have updated this article with data about Win2012. A sample GPO is shown below:

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And a registry file that sets up explorer MY way:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Advanced]
"Start_SearchFiles"=dword:00000001
"StartMenuAdminTools"=dword:00000001
"ServerAdminUI"=dword:00000001
"Hidden"=dword:00000001
"ShowCompColor"=dword:00000001
"HideFileExt"=dword:00000000
"DontPrettyPath"=dword:00000000
"ShowInfoTip"=dword:00000001
"HideIcons"=dword:00000000
"MapNetDrvBtn"=dword:00000000
"WebView"=dword:00000001
"Filter"=dword:00000000
"ShowSuperHidden"=dword:00000001
"SeparateProcess"=dword:00000001
"AutoCheckSelect"=dword:00000000
"IconsOnly"=dword:00000001
"ShowTypeOverlay"=dword:00000001
"ShowStatusBar"=dword:00000001
"ListviewAlphaSelect"=dword:00000000
"ListviewShadow"=dword:00000000
"TaskbarAnimations"=dword:00000000
"StartMenuInit"=dword:00000005
"TaskbarSizeMove"=dword:00000001
"DisablePreviewDesktop"=dword:00000001
"TaskbarSmallIcons"=dword:00000001
"TaskbarGlomLevel"=dword:00000001
"NavPaneShowAllFolders"=dword:00000001
"NavPaneExpandToCurrentFolder"=dword:00000001
"HideDrivesWithNoMedia"=dword:00000000
"HideMergeConflicts"=dword:00000000
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer]
“EnableAutoTray”=dword:00000000

Author: DizzyBadger

SQL Server DBA, Cluster expert, Principal Analyst

One thought on “Annoying default settings”

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