Windows Group-By Menace SOLVED AT LAST!
Today, I had the misfortune of copying files from another computer on my network only to discover that they, and all folders below them, had been tainted with the Windows "group by" feature for some reason. I tried changing the view recursively, but that only changes between thumbnail or list view and doesn't affect Group By. Nothing does! It's a dark maisma that can never be killed and, believe me, I've tried!
There are your usual slough of unhelpful "Microsoft Answers" posts where some "Microsoft partner" who didn't actually read the question tells you the same thing you already knew: change this config and it will work! Except it doesn't. Group By still shows up at odd times and especially in save and open dialog boxes making it near impossible to actually find and manage your files. Whatever edge-case they designed this for is not something I have ever needed and trying to get rid of it is like scooping water out of a sinking ship with a ladle.
After all my time digging through the registry and learning about the "bags" (weird registry stuff, don't worry about it), I could still never figure out the secret to making Windows do something that it should have been designed to do from the start – let us choose how to use it. So today, with the lowest of expectations, I went back to MS "Answers" to see if anyone has figured out something new and this is what I found:
A desperate plea
With a title like Completely disable file grouping, always, everywhere, in all windows, dialogs, everything!, I knew I'd found the right conversation at least. This was someone else who had battled with the darkness. But had they gained ground? Did they fight it off?
A hero emerges!
User LesFerch was the top voted answer with more than 800 "helpful" votes. Promising. His answer provides a lot of detail and methods to wrangle the monster into partial submission, but the most important part is right up top. WinSetView:a free, open-source tool to force Windows to disable Group-By in all views, in all ways, permanently.
I was so shocked, that I didn't believe it at first. Someone had actually defeated the villain? I checked out the tool and it was clear and function. I ran it and checked – no more Group By. Not only that, this tool will help me when I find my settings have been changed or ignored after an update or "new feature" or whatever demon possesses Windows to think that it should have more say in how I use my files than I do. With a button press, I can re-apply my preferred view system-wide in seconds.
I don't understand why it's so often necessary for the community to fix and replace basic Windows functions, but until Microsoft figures it out that it's THEIR job to do, at least we have heroes watching over us.
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