TweakHound

Computer stuff...

Tweaking Windows 10 – Version 20H2

By

Customize Folder Options

This shows how to set the folder viewing options. Sections are arranged in tabs. IMHO this new interface makes the options most folks use far more apparent than in previous Windows versions and thus more user friendly. (Still, it wouldn’t have killed them to make the old menu style available.) Long ago I adopted my “when in doubt, right-click” strategy, and I right-click everything. All the right-click options you are used to are still there.
The File tab is the default view.
The Home tab is where you can manipulate files.
The View tab options are pretty much unchanged from Windows 7, but now you don’t have to navigate with a menu. It’s all where you can see it. Rolling over an option will immediately show you a preview of what that option looks like. See the next section entitled Folder View Options for more on this.
The last tab is usually Manage but for media files it will show Play.
Notice the Manage options for drives. It allows you to defrag, trim, cleanup, and format.

 

Folder View Options

Here are all your Folder view options. My preferences are as you see below.

Please note that if you uncheck the Hide protected operating system files box you’ll have to look at those desktop.ini and thumbs.db files everywhere including the desktop.
Oh, and for the love of all that is Geeky–checking the Launch folder windows in separate process box is not a performance tweak. It is a legacy stability setting that actually uses more of your memory. Please see my Bad Tweaks page.

 

Optimize Folders
Win 10 has various viewing and indexing options for specific types of folders, e.g., pictures, documents, general, etc. Default viewing options are changed based on the contents of the folder. For instance, the Pictures folder will display thumbnails while the Documents folder will display details. If you’re like me, you create a lot of new folders for various items. They are often not optimized for the right file types in the folder, especially if the folder has various file types. This can slow the viewing of folder contents. To optimize your folders: Right-click on the folder > click the Customize tab > in the Optimize this folder for: box, choose the appropriate setting (when in doubt I recommend General items) > Click Apply and OK.

NEXT >>>


Reader Interactions

Comments

  4. Edward Kiefer says

    I notice in your Wise Disk cleaner part your showing version 8, there at version X which has Windows WinSxS (not show in version 8).
    not a big deal but thought I mention it.

  5. Steve B says

    Hey Eric,

    I guess gone are the days where we would pour thru Black Viper’s tables to figure out what to disable. Kudos to BV of course, but it’s nice we don’t have to worry about Windows services all that much anymore.

    I would recommend disabling 2 additional services — Remote Registry (maybe I’m old school and this doesn’t matter anymore, but the name of the service is still downright scary), and Connected User Experience & Telemetry (thanks but no thanks MSFT).

    Great guide and thanks as always for your efforts,
    Steve

  6. Richard Freeston says

    I’ve noticed a small typo on page 17 under File History. The seventh word has an extra ‘s’ in it (constinuously).
    Also the grammar of the first sentence does’nt seem quite right. I suggest leaving out the second and third words.

  7. 7 says

    Eric: The registry hack for removing the word “Shortcut” from new shortcuts doesn’t seem to work in my version of Win 10 Pro 64b (20H32 v19042.746 Experience pack 120.2212.551.0). Instead the hex for link appears to operate as an incrementing count. For instance, say the Hex is showing 17 00 00 00 when I open RegEdit; I can set the Hex to 00 00 00 00 but on restart it shows 18 00 00 00. I wonder if it’s me, or MS?

    • Eric (a.k.a. TweakHound) says

      Try:

      Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

      [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer]
      “link”=hex:1e,00,00,00

  9. Rita R. says

    (Libraries) Just an FYI copy pasting the folders to a new location is an unnecessary step. The move dialog will do the work of moving the files in those folders for you, save yourself a couple of seconds and an insignificant amount of bytes on the web.

    Peace, Love, Donuts,
    Rita

    • Eric (a.k.a. TweakHound) says

      A folder with the name of the library needs to exist in the location you want to move it to. The files are still moved. Copy/paste is just as fast and easy as your way.

  10. Rita Rodriguez says

    Since Windows 10 is funky, if anyone reads these comments I have something to add, particularly for y’all gamers.

    #1 Heed the warning and /do/ not remove windows apps from your machine with O&O, user only is enough. It deleted my app manifest so a batch reinstall did not work, and couldn’t find a way to restore it. Windows Store works fine for everything but Cortana, you need to do an extra step to get her back, even if only to disable, its a windows 10 trend that follows to my next suggestion.

    #2 Go into gaming settings and just disable Game Mode/Game bar, don’t remove the app from user or computer. While it has no affect, every game you run calls the game bar and will pop an error saying its missing, I assume it has to do with the processes that start up Full Screen Optimizations calling game bar as well, regardless if its disabled it will never load. It is safe to uninstall the console companion.

  11. DanS says

    In 20h2 there is no longer the option “sign in with a local account instead” after you have signed in with a Microsoft account. I had a coworker do this by mistake and now I cannot remove his Microsoft account from the workstation. Is there a way to manually remove the Microsoft account?

  12. Michael Damian says

    Hi Eric,

    you may provide a reg-hack which patches the Windows 10 version number (not product key) to a recent one?

    Reason:
    MS does not deliver any apps via [Get], in my case today the free HTML5 Video Downloader by Arcadio Garcia (link below),
    if they do not meet version # 10586.0 at least.

    Last December I updated the OS for the sake of another app which left me in a total language mix, missing device and BT manager, a deliberate removed group policy editor (gpedit) but a proper reinstalled Cortana, Edge and all the other stuff MS cr*ps users lawn with.
    Hence I re-installed my former shutupped/winslapped and outbound firewall protected v10240 again but been left in the rain
    now when it comes to add simple addons from MS.

    There is no rason whatsoever a downloader or else shan’t run on even older version than mine, just the usual
    MS ignorance driven by complacency.

    Your sincerely
    Michael Damian