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

Locked Question. This question was migrated from the Microsoft Support Community. You can vote on whether it's helpful, but you can't add comments or replies or follow the question.

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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
    2018-01-20T15:00:06+00:00

    Hey guys.

    Stop writing on Microsoft sites and you will see improvements from MS.

    Every time you write something here, they want and can monitor what you're doing and that is the only purpose of MS today. They deliver bad software, a bad environment, which they let people debug for them, by themselves, no quality of the product at all, but every time you connect with all your credentials to try to solve your problems, you open up your personal data and they can use it to make more money. That is the purpose of MS Today.

    Look at the level of monitoring on people we get today and nobody reacts. They have no interest in fixing the problem, if they do, you will stop writing stuff back and forth, and they will lose the hook to keep you connected on their sites.

    Windows updates are the same. I don't say it was the purpose of WU at the beginning but when Windows started, we had people answering our questions and they were explaining stuff so we could resolve our issues. Today, we do exactly that for them by trials and errors. We spend several hours per week of our time (our life) trying to make that environment and office suite work for us but they don’t pay us to do that and we are losing our life doing it. Time that could be spent with our kids, family and friends. Same thing with our phones, but that’s another subject.

    Their purpose is to keep us captive of them, in front of our computer, on the net, so they can sell us more useless stuff. Like having popups appearing in front on what I’m doing while I’m working and I cannot click anywhere else than where they want me to click. Doesn’t it annoys you ? Same thing with that jumping all over the place bug in Windows Explorer.

    As a solution, I still have a XP Base computer, a Windows 7 Pro 64bit base computer and I removed all internet connections, all ethernet and wifi hardware so I don't have to worry with viruses, having popups appearing and making me lose my focus,and all my (older) ms office are working like they should be : lightning ! No jumping up and away from the focus of what I’m doing.

    I click and the reaction is a fraction of a second. No round shape turning around my pointer. So when I’m done working on a project, a file, I use my USB key and I transfer it to a cheap laptop that will never be anything more than just slow and I don’t keep any credentials, any personal data on that computer. I created a stupid outlook email address to dump any junk in it so it is a way to crank a finger to a company that we don’t have a choice to work with.

    For me, it is the last post I will lose my time on.

    Not interested in a solution from MS.

    They can keep not finding solution for us.

    I recover my life.

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  2. Anonymous
    2018-01-18T15:33:02+00:00

    Third party software isn't the solution unless it can replace the system open and save dialogs. I deal with this issue several times a day.

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  3. Anonymous
    2018-01-18T10:24:36+00:00

    I bought Avanquest PowerDesk 9 Pro. Excellent file manager with dual pane capability and lots of other features especially being able to copy and paste a list of a folder's content as a list. Very useful for music and video.

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  4. Anonymous
    2018-01-18T09:04:44+00:00

    Haha.  I only follow this thread to see how long MS will keep it alive (or fix it).

    https://www.xyplorer.com is the solution to this issue....and many more..

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