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

Anonymous

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.

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Anonymous

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:

The engineers are aware of this issue.
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:

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.

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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Anonymous

2017-11-20T02:34:30+00:00

The problem is worse if you have an older/slower computer or if you work over a company network.

The problem seems to stem from the fact that the system insists on displaying the file list using an arbitrary default sort order first then refreshes it to display the current sort order. This can cause a delay of several seconds when accessing a large folder or a folder over the network. The folder it starts in doesn't happen to be the folder you wish to use, so in this time period you reach for the folder pane to find the place you actually want to go, that's when the folder pane suddenly shifts.
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Anonymous

2017-11-19T07:16:07+00:00

Thanks for your detailed reply.

So here's a request to anyone who sees the problem in Windows 10, 64 bit: please state the utility that shows the problem. If it is free, I will test it to see if Classic Shell can fix the problem.
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Anonymous

2017-11-18T18:16:29+00:00

Windows XP (SP1-3) and Win Vista (SP1-2) are not affected.

All following forks of Windows have that issue with jumping folders. (with some editing)

@JareM66, you are correct for XP and Vista versions. Thanks for that detail.

However my Win 8.1 Pro x64 had no jumping problem. Same with my Win 10 Pro x64. But others are reporting this issue for the not Pro version of Win 10.
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Anonymous

2017-11-18T18:09:09+00:00

Can you give an example of the "file / open" or "file / save" problem in a commonly used (and free) utility? I will try it.

I just tried Notepad++ on Windows 10, 64 bit, version 1709, build 16299.64.

The problem is NOT there in the "File / Open" dialog of Notepad++.

I have not seen the problem in the "File / Save" dialog as there is no "Folder pane" view in the Notepad++ "Save as..." dialog.

That's the difficult part. It's hard to nail down where it appears and where not. I also do not see that behavior in "Microsoft Windows 10 Pro 64x, Version 10.0.15063 Build 15063".

In general if your Windows Explorer shows the jumping issue, then other programs (in general) will inherit that behavior when they use the File System Dialog, if the dialog is used with the Folder Pane option. That window is part of the OS/Explorer environment (that wording is a generalization and may not be precise, so I bow to the specialists).

There are some applications that overcome this issue, but they must be written without using the File System Dialog. For example, there are a number of free explorer type application that have addressed this problem. However they do not fix the File System Dialog, if it has the jumping issue.

With all the variations of where the issue appears and where not, I am starting to understand why Microsoft has not "fixed" the issue. Not making excuses for them, but I can imagine it could be like catching gas in the wind. And worst of all, they are probably victims of their own success (excuse me for using that term), because when they start a new project, a problem can easily get propagated into the next version of software. Proof of that is that some posters report that they see the jumping behavior in Win 10.
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