Cause Windows XP folders have a number of different appearance features—some of which you may like and some of which you may not. No matter, you can change most anything about the way your folders look, and you can solve this problem in a few different places.
The Pain Killer To make the folder look the way you want, follow these steps:
In the desired folder, click View | Customize This Folder. This action opens the Customize tab of the folder's properties pages, shown in the illustration. You can choose a folder template if one is needed (such as pictures, music, and so forth). If the folder is just for a mix of files or documents, choose the Documents option. Notice that you can have all subfolders also use the template by clicking the check box.
Next, notice that you can put a picture on the folder in order to remind you of what is held in the folder. Click Choose Picture if you want to change this option. Finally, you can have the folder displayed with a different icon by clicking the Change Icon button. When you are done, just click OK.
The following steps assume you are using the Classic view of Control Panel. If you are not sure if you are using the Classic view of Control Panel, click Start | Control Panel. In the left window pane, click the Switch to Classic View option.
- You can also change the way folders provide you with information. Open Control Panel and open Folder Options (which is also available in any folder by clicking Tools | Folder Options). This opens the Folder Options window. Take a look at the General tab. Notice that you can use the Common Tasks feature (which displays the Tasks features along the left side of the window). You can get rid of this by clicking the Use Windows Classic Folders option. In the Browse section, you can have each folder open in the same window or have each folder open in its own window. Finally, you can use the single-click or double-click feature. Make any selections you want to try.
- Click the View menu. You'll see check boxes for a number of Advanced Settings. For example, you can choose to show hidden files and folders, show file extensions, show Control Panel in My Computer, show encrypted or compressed NTFS files in color, and make a number of other settings. You can read through this list and enable or disable any folder features that you want by clicking the check box. If you don't know what a setting means, right-click the setting and click What's This. If you are still not sure if you should change the setting, then don't. The default settings are usually right for most people. When you're done, click OK.
One setting you might consider changing is the Show File Extensions setting. This feature puts the extension on the end of a file. For example, let's say you have a JPEG file called “dog.” Under the default setting, you only see the filename, but if you choose to show file extensions, the file appears as dog.jpeg. Since you can see all file extensions, you can often head off file type confusion.
Have you tried some of these settings and now you are having a lot of problems? Don't despair. You can put everything back like it was before you made the changes by clicking the Restore Defaults button on the View tab of Folder Options.
