Please bring back the ability to freely arrange icons within folders "DISABLE AUTO ARRANGE"!

Try to re-register Feedback Hub from Option 2 here: http://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/3175-apps-re...

Meantime, from File Explorer View tab you can set your files to Sort by your preference like Alphabetical order so they are easier to find.

Hi Thanks for staying on Greg! Alphabetical or date or size etc. do not work for me. Another example is if you left your winter coat in your closet and it is gone when you get back. It's been put in some other closet or on another hanger somewhere. Do you know the name of the coat? Do you know the date you put it there? Maybe a terrible analogy but on my older Mac computer I know exactly where every file is because they are still where I put them. My preference in sorting is NONE. I do understand others may like the computer to change their files. I want them untouched when I leave my computer. Windows HAD it (NO auto arrange or align to grid). It's gone now, so we know they can and could restore it back.

    Your link to reinstall and re-register apps; I read through but I'm not sure how that's relevant or why I would want to do that? That sure sounds like asking for trouble too. This problem is a system registry file OS issue not an app registration issue.  Am I missing something or did you just attach the wrong link?   

  It keeps going back to so many users like me just want NO machine sorting. We want to sort the files the way that make sense to us. "Adding" a software function can cause problems. But just Leaving files Alone, doing Nothing to them, seems so utterly simple. I truly am baffled at this whole thing.  Let's keep trying.  Something obvious has to come up. Mark

I just don't understand why they would possibly take away this fundamental and crucial OS behavior.

It's not necessarily fundamental and crucial.

You may be surprised to find that many users, like myself, rarely, if ever, use icon view. Instead, I use Details or List view and know where everything is based on the folder it's in and/or its order (usually by name, but sometimes by some other attribute). Sometimes I use icon view for folders containing pictures, but still leave them sorted by name, date, or type.

Microsoft may have determined that very few users were interested in arranging icons manually, other than on the Desktop. When I search the topic, I get many hits on arranging Desktop icons, but next to nothing in regards to arranging icons within folders. It never appeared to be a hot topic. It's obviously super important to you. It just doesn't appear to be important to a lot of other users.

I don't understand why Greg Carmack gave you so many links when everything relevant is covered in this tutorial which clearly states (and you've confirmed this yourself) that it no longer works as of Windows 10 Creators Updateversion1703.

As of Windows 10 1703, the functionality (of icon positions in folders being remembered) has been stripped out of File Explorer. You won't find some registry "hack" to bring back that functionality and, as far as I can determine, there are no third party utilities to provide that feature. There are many tools that enhance Desktop icon position management, but nothing it seems, for icon positions within folders.

At this point, your choices appear to be:

1. Learn to live without that feature (e.g. readjust your file organization to use more folders).
2. Install a version of Windows 10 older than 1703, set it to not auto-update, and accept that it will be less secure.
3. Give up on Windows and get a Mac.

I AM very surprised you say many users don't use icon view. I've found the opposite. And there are so many users I've discovered that are angry that MS removed the option. Maybe programmers were lazy in the updates? It's only logical to me that the Desktop arrangement should be consistent with the rest of the computer file arrangement. Why different? This current arrangement seems so haphazard and patched.

This IS crucial to me.  I'm continually now fighting and searching for data and files that I KNOW where they were, but were changed behind my back when I go back to look for them. I don't regularly have memorized the name of a file or the date I created it. I myself like the freedom and control to locate my data and not have a modern computer dictate where they want it. Seems backward and crude, and very unfriendly. To me, data should stay exactly where you put it, period. Really hard to understand otherwise, but everyone is different.

I've looked into trying to revert to the (superior in my eyes) older Windows version, but I had been forced to update, (tried to stop it!), to the more current ones, and as you know, even if successful, many of your other apps and system functions will be adversely affected by trying to go back. It would probably more easy to start over with a new or reformatted computer.

  Putting up with this ridiculous forced arrangement and searching endlessly for my data is not an option for me.

I've been testing the Mac OS and reading many users and reviews now because of this Windows issue. Mac gives you freedom and choice and seems far superior and common sense when using it. I think it may be the best way to go since MS doesn't seem to care enough about it's users. So disappointed. Not worth struggling with a computer UI, better time spent doing what you want to do with your data.

   I am grateful and appreciate forums such as this that have real user opinions and suggestions. Thanks very much for your continued thoughts. I'll keep this conversation alive just in case one of the frustrated users does create a program to allow manual sorting again.

Yes, Microsoft is a control freak. It turned off the option to freely arrange documents/pdf in a folder after Window XP. It does my head in. It is particularly annoying because I need files in a particular order and need to add files to the list in the order that I need them.