Disable group by in Downloads folder (Windows 10 1903)

My Windows 10 Pro was just updated to version 1903 - and Microsoft changed my Downloads folder group option to Group By Date Modified.

At first, I though I'd lost the subfolders. Then I became increasingly annoyed when I couldn't find any mention of this change in the What's New  or What's Changed information, or how to make it just show all in alphabetical order. I had to spend significant time to research the problem and how to fix it.

Microsoft - as a general rule, I would prefer that your updates make no change my user interface. Especially when you're changing a user preference option rather than introducing some global improvement.

But if you feel you must change my user interface, PLEASE HAVE THE COURTESY TO PLAINLY STATE YOUR CHANGES IN AN OBVIOUS AND EASILY ACCESSED AREA.

Hi Jeremie,

Thanks much, after trying all the other suggestions (none of which worked), I followed your link and now everything is working as it did before Version 1903 upgrade.

You might also want to change the CSS in this forum so replies don't run into original posts.

This is just plain stoopid! Yup, I spelled "stupid" wrong to emphasize it because it's a PITA. I have been using computers for 30 years, and I already have a very organized way to save things that I download. I organize them by what type of download it is, not what the EFFING date I downloaded it. I mean come on! Say you have a folder c:\downloads\authoring\wordpress\plugins and you want to save something there.  Well, gee, the last time I saved a plugin was like three months ago, so I have to look through all the "Earlier this year" and they're not even in EFFING alphabetical ORDER.  For Christ's sake, I have 33 folders off the root of Downloads and 919 folders in total.  Please stop fixing things that aren't broken!

Hi Chap Sistine,

Thank you for writing to Microsoft Community Forums.

The Group by option in normal folders and in Save as window are different, so if you change the Group by to type in Downloads folder, it will not change in Save as window. Then, if you change the Group by in Save as window, it will not change in normal folders.

You can refer the below example.

Change the Group by as size in Downloads folder - Change the Group by as size in Save as window.

Change the Group by as type in Downloads folder - (Check) Group by as size in Save as window (it will not change until you right-click in Save as window and change it to type or anything else).

Also, the Group by option is specific to folders and once you change Group by for a particular folder, the changes will not be applied to all the folders. You need to change the Group by for every folder by opening that particular folder > Press the Alt and V > Click on G > Select the Group by settings or click on Choose columns for more options.

So, once you change the Group by in Save as window, it will remain the same regardless of whichever application you open the Save as window from.

Regards;

Mr. Khan your answer only lookup to Windows File Explorer and other functions of Windows but do not take in account other software's that had been affected by this "not understand why" change to a date default. I am using QDir as my File Explorer since I can have up to 4 screens at the same time and did not matter that I made the changes on the software to what I want (and was the options before this marvelous change) Group by "none" and Sort by Name it always came back to the new default. I have thousands of folders that took me years to organize in a way that make sense to my work and *Voila!*in a moment Microsoft scratch that organization.

Is there not possible that consider and maybe ask to customers before making this kind of changes. Who organize the files by date in this century (you always have options to sort them on the fly)?

Sincerely

Luis Marrero