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
    2010-08-07T21:43:54+00:00

    So ... Windows 7 Service Pack 1 Beta ... doesn't repair it. As predicted, Microsoft won't solve this.

    We're in the hands of third parties and hackers if this is gonna get solved at all. And then Microsft cries because of security risks...

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  2. Anonymous
    2010-08-07T12:51:11+00:00

    Yet another voice added to the "Fix it" brigade.

    If this is "by design", what was the point of the design? Seriously, I cannot fathom any possible explanation as to why this could be useful behaviour. If it really is "by design", MS NEED to fire the incompetent moron who thought "Hey, let's make it so that folder list auto-scrolls the contents of the newly opened folder so that they're off the bottom of the screen, thus requiring the user to have to constantly scroll down to see the subfolders of the folder he's just double clicked on!"

    Like I say, if this is by design, then the design is appalling and frankly beggars belief. Hence, this piece of bad design needs fixing!

    If it's not by design (far more likely due to how horrible the problem is), then it's a bug and needs fixing.

    Either way, this problem makes Windows Explorer INFURIATING to use when you're trying to navigate through lots of folders. It DESPERATELY needs fixing.

    EDIT: A solution which DID work for me.

    1. Install the free Classic Shell. This is free, quite customisable and works as a mod for Windows Explorer, rather than a full blown replacement. Personally, I didn't install the Classic Start Menu option, but you can if you want.
    2. Reboot the computer.
    3. Launch Windows Explorer and turn on "Always Show Menus" (this is just for configuration, you can turn it off again afterwards if you want).
    4. Right click on the menu bar and turn on the "Classic Explorer Bar". This adds a series of cut/copy/paste icons to Explorer. Crucially, it also adds the "Configuration" icon.
    5. Go into the configuration and from here you can tweak things to your heart's content. To kill the horrible Windows 7 folder-jumping, switch the "Navigation Pane Style" to Vista. You can even go more retro and knock it back to XP mode if you want (this adds in the lines to the folder tree and adds a classic "+" icon for expanding folders).
    6. Tweak the other settings as well. I have it so that the "More details" bit in copy dialogs is automatically expanded, I've checked the "Show free space and file size in status bar" option (no more having to right click on the drive to see how much space is left), personally I decided to stick with the Windows 7 style "file overwrite" dialog (the default is for the simpler Vista/XP style dialog), and I went for the Windows Vista style folder view which looks pretty much the same as the Windows 7 view, but gets rid of the horrible jumping.

    After this, you can turn the toolbar and menus back off in Explorer if you wish. All I know, is that Windows Explorer looks largely the same for me, but folder no longer jump around at all and I finally have my "free disk space" entry back in the status bar.

    Now, if only MS could code properly so that I didn't have to mess on with third party apps to get Windows to actually work properly...

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  3. Anonymous
    2010-08-07T02:52:51+00:00

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  4. Anonymous
    2010-08-02T13:12:34+00:00

    I've signed in just to add myself to the list of people claiming for a solution.

    A) If it's a bug, fix it.

    B) If it's by design, fire the designer and FIX IT.

    It's really amazing how, in 2010, Windows 7, I have to resort to use shell or explorer substitutes ... like if I was back in 1992, Windows 3.1. If this is your vision of the future, it sucks.

    And ... I know this won't be solved. Microsoft is a stubborn dinosaur who can't and won't react to their users needs ... because we're not users anymore, we're hostages.

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