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

Anonymous
2022-08-13T02:39:26+00:00

I just want to "disable" confounding Auto Arrange files within folders in Windows 10. I can't understand that when you leave file/folder icons in the position and order that you want and then Windows decides to mix them up. I'm continually wasting time trying to find lost data. It's ridiculous. Does anyone know or can create something that just allows you to arrange or sort files within folders, and Leave them alone, without the OS messing them up?

Windows for home | Windows 10 | Files, folders, and storage

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  1. Anonymous
    2022-09-25T00:06:17+00:00

    Thanks for letting me know I'm not alone. I thought was the only one going crazy. To have Microsoft change the OS to DEMAND the way IT wants files and folders sorted is just beyond my common sense reasoning. Because Mac OS will let you do what you want, ergo leaves files just the way you left them (DUH!) I am going to have to give up and go to them. I need my data exactly the way I left it when returning to it. Who would not? Extremely surprised there isn't protest or banning. I have no understanding why MS would make an update worse and so backward primitive. At least there are two of us that understands the insanity. 

    If you ever find a work around, please post a reply and let me know. Thank you again for your thoughts.

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  2. Anonymous
    2022-10-21T09:25:59+00:00

    Sorry to interfere in the thread. I previously made a correction in the registry, where I could then sort manually, but after update 22H2 Windows 10 Home, the method no longer works.

    The idea of being able to sort images/folders/icons manually is that you can put them in a certain order and then 'mass' name them so that they always keep this order. An example. I receive photos from 3 different photographers about the same event, the photos of course have different names, I then want to put them in chronological order and 'mass' name them so that the order is subsequently maintained. It is a huge job if you have to do this manually. So that's why manual sorting is very important, at least for me.

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  3. Anonymous
    2022-10-21T09:59:16+00:00

    In the meantime, I tried this hack, but it also doesn't work after update 22H2. :-(

    https://technastic.com/disable-auto-refresh-auto-arrange-windows-explorer/

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  4. Les Ferch 10,361 Reputation points Volunteer Moderator
    2022-10-21T12:15:51+00:00

    As already mentioned, the feature stopped working as of Windows 10 1703. That is, you can still enable those menu items to freely arrange, but it will not save the positions. The change was not recent. Windows 10 1703 came out in 2017. You must have been running an old version of Windows before you updated to 22H2.

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  5. Anonymous
    2022-10-21T12:29:42+00:00

    I can tell that before updating to 22H2, my Windows was fully updated, and I downloaded the installer and updated manually to 22H2, yesterday.

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