Windows Explorer expands folders inappropriately, jumping the folder you expand to the bottom of the navigation pane

Anonymous
2009-10-28T18:12:01+00:00

When using a left-side Navigation pane, if there are enough folders in the navigation pane such that you have a vertical scroll bar, if you click on a folder with the mouse (so as to see the contends in the right pane), then expand the folder (either by clicking on the + symbol or with the arrow key), then the left pane will automatically scroll up as far as it can such that the folder you expanded is still in view at the bottom of the pane. This removes the folder from under your mouse, where it would be expected to stay.

This is certainly a bug, as it only happens the first time you attempt to expand a folder in the manner. After doing it once, you can scroll the navigation (left) pane so that the folder in question is back in the middle of the pane, and it will expand and contract as expected, remaining under the mouse.

Windows for home | Previous Windows versions | Files, folders, and storage

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Anonymous
2011-06-30T22:14:30+00:00

Because many people seem to be interested in this issue, I'll post some info on my recent contact with Microsoft regarding this issue.

It seemed that everywhere this issue was talked about, all anybody would get from a Microsoft employee was a boilerplate "Thanks for your feedback" response. Never was the validity of the issue discussed or even acknowledged. I decided to write an email to the man in charge, Steve Ballmer, clearly laying out the problem with links to a walkthrough of the problem, this discussion, and the bug report with 220 votes (at the time). I realized that Steve would never read it himself, but I figured his email must get auto-forwarded to someone who might actually read it.

Two days later I got an email from an Advocacy Specialist from Microsoft saying a "grace case" has been created and the Windows Escalation Team would get in touch with me. The next day an Escalation Engineer emailed me asking when would be a good time to talk on the phone about the issues. So that he would be completely clear with what I was talking about, I recorded a screencast that walked through precisely what the issue was.

Edit: I've made a more condensed video demonstrating the "folder jump bug", view it here.

The end result of our talking was this:

  1. The engineers are aware of this issue.
  2. They may or may not provide a fix for it.

Nothing groundbreaking, but it's one more little push in the right direction. In my opinion, posting in this thread about the problem is virtually worthless. I would suggest:

  1. Voting up and commenting on the bug here:

http://connect.microsoft.com/WindowsServerFeedback/feedback/details/621426/bug-when-expanding-folders-in-explorer-server-2008-r2-and-windows-7

He said that site is closely monitored by the dev team.

  1. Writing intelligent, profanity-free complaints that mention how the bug negatively affects your everyday file-management workflow. Email these up the Microsoft food chain until you get a response. You are a paying customer and you deserve to be heard.

I got tired of dealing with it, so am now using XYplorer when doing heavy file management. It stings to have to pay for a decent file manager, but that is life. If this issue bothers you at all, please comment and vote on the bug, and write an email.

UPDATE 9/13/11: Bug is still present in Windows 8 Developer Preview, see it here.

UPDATE 1/30/12: Finally we have a public acknowledgment that this is in fact a bug that needs to be addressed, and it will apparently be fixed in the upcoming Windows 8 Beta. This is good news, but I know I will be using Win7 for at least another year or two, as will many, many others. We deserve a patch to fix this issue in Win7. Until that happens, keep bugging Microsoft about it.

FINAL THOUGHTS: This is a real bug with 645! votes on their feedback page, however MS has no plans to fix it for their Windows 7 users. The bug is fixed in Windows 8, which means nothing for a vast number of us who have no plans to upgrade. If this bug really gets under your skin, I suggest installing Classic Shell, which has been recommended a few times in this thread. You can choose to only install the 'Classic Explorer' feature which fixes this bug among others, and even brings back the old File Copy UI which is so nice to have back. I've been using it for many months now without any troubles.

Also, to those of you who think they find a solution to this problem by simply changing a few options settings somewhere... thank you for your desire to help all of us, but you must not be having the same problem, and please don't post your 'solution' here. If you read some of the 29 pages of this thread, you'll see every solution imaginable has been suggested. This is a bug in Explorer itself. If you use Windows 7 and plan to keep using it, your options are 1) use Classic Shell, or 2) use a third party file management tool, such as XYplorer. If you stumble across this thread because you just noticed this bug, please vote up the bug, and do either 1 or 2.

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  1. Anonymous
    2010-02-20T13:26:04+00:00

    When you (double) click on the main folder in the left pane, it should stay where it is on the screen and all the sub-folders should be displayed beneath it.

    It there isn't enough room to display all the sub-folders, then the main top folder should be moved up until the is enough room, or it should stop at the top of the left pane if there are so many sub-folders that they completely fill the left pane.

    Now, in which operating system have I seen this obvious and intuitive behaviour before? Oh yes, it's called Windows XP.

    So, Microsoft, if you could just drag back one of your retired XP designers, prop him up in his wheel chair and change his incontinence bag for him, he may just sort this out for you in about half an hour.

    Or you could just keep pretending that this ____-up was "by design" and lose whatever respect some of us still have for you.

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  2. Anonymous
    2010-02-19T19:50:59+00:00

    If I double click on an folder in the navigation pane for the first time in an explorer session, the pane jumps to the top, the folder I clicked on pushing to the bottom. If I instead use the navigation arrows or double click the same folder subsequent times in a session, it does not exhibit this jumping behavior, and works like prior versions of explorer.

    This may be a result of the design, I rather doubt that it's bydesign. Anybody with light UI design experience can tell that this is a significant inconsistency, and the folders you are navigating moving out from under your mouse, plus the window hiding the subfolders you were trying to get at "below the fold" is a glaring flaw. It also doesn't match any standard file navigation designs in any product I have seen in the past 20 years - microsoft, apple, linux, sun, or otherwise, and serves no beneficial purpose over prior designs.

    If you can't explain to me why my folders should "run away" from my mouse when I double click on them, and only the first time at that, I would really appreciate a fix for this behavior.

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  3. Anonymous
    2010-02-18T03:03:10+00:00

    you hit the nail on the head. This has been driving me absolutely nuts. That plus Dell and I'm seriously thinking of throwing this machine (only a year old, mind you) in the dumpster and buying a Mac. Yea, you heard me.

    At first when this crazy jumping happened I thought I was seeing things, because as several of you have pointed out, it doesn't happen consistently. Why, why, why, would you MAKE it jump like that. And the worse of it is it takes a split second, by which point I've moved on and clicked on, yes, the WRONG folder, because the navigation menu has jumped from under my nose. Jeez...

    Whoever designed this--get another job, please. Some of us are geting on, and we need all the hair we can hang on to...

    T

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  4. Anonymous
    2010-02-13T18:59:36+00:00

    Microsoft: get it fixed!

    Sergey (DPack - www.usysware.com/dpack/)

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