How to manually arrange folders in windows 7__

Anonymous
2009-10-24T14:09:18+00:00

When i try manually move one folder to be the first i can t whay

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

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Anonymous
2009-10-25T13:55:54+00:00

Hello ivan099, welcome.

You can manually arrange desktop icons, however, any other icons within folders are auto-arranged and cannot be altered by direct access. You can arrange them in a multitude of different ways by right clicking open space (within a folder) and selecting Sort By > More...

A problem was discovered in Windows XP when users would accidentally manually arrange folders and icons and, in turn, they would overlap eachother. For simplicity's sake and for performance reasons, this feature was removed.

There are a number of 3rd-party programs that exist that allow you to do this, however, they would of course not be supported by Microsoft.

I would search the internet for 'File Manager', 'Alternate Shell', or something of the like. You may find some support forums that have users that specialize in just the exact thing you are looking for.

Hope this helps,

Thanks!

Ryan Thieman

Microsoft Answers Support Engineer

Visit our Microsoft Answers Feedback Forum and let us know what you think.

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  1. Anonymous
    2014-11-14T02:53:26+00:00

    Well then the auto-arrange function needs some improvement, because it does not always work like it should. For example I was recently helping my cousin with some of her school work which involved the history of U.S. currency and I was saving some images for her and they will not arrange in the proper order. I have images of the $1, $2, $5, $10, $20, $50, $100, $500, $1,000 $5,000 and $10,000 bills and for some reason it keeps sticking the $1,000 bill in between the $1 and $2 bills. Also keeps putting the $5,000 in between the $5 and $10. Another function that doesn't work properly is the arrange by date function. It will sometimes stick files that I have just saved behind others that were saved hours or even days ago.

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  2. Anonymous
    2014-10-27T00:56:59+00:00

    Oh my goodness, I think this is one of the most annoying things about Microsoft that I've come across. 5 years later and still the same issue with Windows 8, even after all of the complaints about it around the web? I hate that I have to go through third party programs to undo something like this. Please excuse me now while I huff and puff for a little while.

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  3. Anonymous
    2014-01-24T20:13:04+00:00

    Microsoft really dropped the ball on this one, you would think people would move to apple for there next computing  experience, If this is how Microsoft treats there customers. One pissed off consumer.

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  4. Anonymous
    2013-10-10T03:20:46+00:00

    I stumbled on this thread because I've been bitten by a variant of the problem - one of the replies a couple of pages ago included a statement about wanting to add back in the ability of Windows 7 for "remembering individual folder window sizes and positions"

    • did this ever get fixed for Windows 7?

    I really need to be able to create multiple different folders, each of which will open up in a different specific position, with a specific size, and a specific view (e.g., medium icons), etc.  However, every time I create one window looking the way I want it, and then try modifying a second window, it changes the first one so all of them lose their specific characteristics and all look the same.  Is there really no way to make this happen, or am I just missing some simple setting in some menu somewhere?

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