Disable group by in Downloads folder (Windows 10 1903)

But Hackdesigner, that is a horribly inefficient way! ( Both the concept of editing individual bags & the way you coded it. )

Except for guessing that some may have sync issues ( but have yet know of anyone with saavy & interest to test ), these issues stem from the user not understanding how Explorer handles views.

If the roof is leaking, it's better to patch the roof than build an elaborate gutter system through the living room! :D

Keith

It looks like Win10  has "SniffedFolderType" value under Bags/i/Shell key. The Downloads folder would have it set to "Downloads".

I came up with the following powershell. It's more complicated than the one from Keith but it minimizes the number of potential issues and only (!) patches the Downloads folders. Give it a try.

$paths=@(

    'HKCU:\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Shell\Bags',

    'HKCU:\Software\Classes\Local Settings\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Shell\Bags',

    'HKCU:\Software\Classes\Wow6432Node\Local Settings\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Shell\Bags'

)

$paths|ForEach-Object{

    if(Test-Path $_){

        $maxBags = (Get-ItemProperty $_.Replace('Bags', 'BagMRU')).NodeSlots.Length

        for($i=0; $i -le $maxBags; $i++){

            $bag="$_$i"

            $bs ="$bag\Shell"

            if(Test-Path $bs){

                if((Get-ItemProperty $bs).SniffedFolderType -eq 'Downloads'){

                    "Downloads type in $bs"

                    Get-ChildItem $bag | ForEach-Object{

                        foreach($guid in $_.GetSubKeyNames()){

                            $guidKey = $_.OpenSubKey($guid, $true)

                            $gv = $guidKey.GetValue('GroupView')

                            if($gv -ne 0 -and $gv -ne $null -and $gv -ne ''){

                                "Set GroupView to 0 at $($_.Name)$guid"

                                $guidKey.SetValue('GroupView', 0, [Microsoft.Win32.RegistryValueKind]::DWord)

                            }

                        }

                    }

                }

            }

        }

    }

}

Those who have sync issues, can schedule this script to run regularly. To hide PS window, you can schedule the following vbs to run (provided the above is named SetGroupView.ps1). Name it something like SetGroupView.vbs and place it in Task Scheduler:

a = CreateObject("Wscript.Shell").Run( "cmd /c powershell -file D:\path\to\SetGroupView.ps1", 0, True)

if a <> 0 then Msgbox a, 0, "Script error, exit code below"

Of course, before running PS scripts through VBS, you need to set the system to run unsigned scripts. Run this in elevated Powershell:

Set-ExecutionPolicy Unrestricted

I see where your August 16th post has the easy solution! wish I had seen that earlier! Anyway to get this elevated to the top answer?

YOu shouldn't have  to do that. I posted that answer out of frustation with people that latch on to an existing thread simply saying "didn't work".

The fact the reply marked as 'Answer' in this thread is incomplete doesn't help, but it's hard to interactively trouble-shoot when people aren't tech-oriented, impatient, and talking over each other.

I wish I could see thises computers and figure out if there are factors at play I can't test ( Only own one device so can see if synching interferes, for example ) or if the user ignored/misunterstood some aspect of troubleshotting/repair. 

Keiht