How Do I make windows open dialog boxes default to bigger (and other settings) in vis

Factual Questions
1

ta

Every time I have to open a file I go through this routine…

Click open (or save)

Resize the tiny little box to roughly 50% the size of my screen (reducing scroll bars and hidden info)

contract the profile folder

expand the c: drive.

Seek out the appropriate directory on C:.

If I am opening, view by ‘details’, show the ‘date modified’ field, sort by date modified.

If saving, click save.

That’s a LOT of processes to go through to do such a basic task. Is there any way I can get windows vista to default at least SOME of that (such as always show a big window, or always start from c:)

2

I’m going to use my bump allowance on this thread.

Bump.
edit: the smiley snook in there without my approval or indeed knowledge.

3

Is there a specific program you’re talking about? If so, right click on its entry in the Start Menu and choose Properties. Then, in the “Start In” field, you can specify the directory you want it to open by default when you save or load. Properly-written programs should follow this convention, but unfortunately not all do.

So, some alternatives (you’re actually fortunate to be on Vista, believe it or not, since it has several features that might make this easier):

-In the Open/Save dialog, you can simply drag your favorite folders onto the list on the left hand side. It becomes a shortcut there so you don’t have to browse through your entire hard drive structure every time.

-A lot of Open/Save dialogs will have a little down arrow next to the place where you type in a filename. This list should show you the most recently used locations so you can quickly find them again instead of having to type it all over.

-Whenever you pop up the start menu, there’s a little search field at the bottom that you can use to directly find a document by name. This should be a lot faster than searching in previous versions of Windows because Vista automatically indexes your files for faster searching (kinda like making a library card catalog).

-You can also use Vista’s advanced search to look for only (for example) MS Word documents in folder X created after date Y. It gets complicated, so look to a reference guide like this one as an example.

-Lastly, if you’re not already doing so, it might help to start using more of Windows’s built-in folders like “Documents”, “Pictures”, etc., as many programs are designed to make those locations easy to access through big buttons in the Open/Save dialogs and such.

4

http://retestrak.nl/board/index.php?/topic/19835-how-to-make-open-save-dialog-bigger-by-default-comdlg32dll-hack/

WARNING: Before doing this, you should make a copy of C:\windows\system32\comdlg32.dll at somewhere like C:\windows\system32\comdlg32.dll.backup. This is because if you corrupt comdlg32.dll then Windows will not start and you will need to boot into a BootCD such as UBCD that can access NTFS and rename the old original file back.

  1. Download and install and open Resource Hacker from http://www.angusj.com/resourcehacker/
  2. In Resource Hacker - Open C:\windows\system32\comdlg32.dll
  3. In the left tree - Navigate to Dialog –> 1552 –> 1033 (Note: if you have disabled the Places bar to the left of the Open-Save Dialog, then you will be using Dialog 1547 instead of 1552).
  4. Where-ever you see four numbers - it is specifying X-position, Y-position, Width, Height. You can tweak these numbers yourself or use the below settings provided which is good for medium-large size screens.
  5. After you are done modifying your positions and sizes - click on “Compile Script”. You shouldn’t drag the sizes on the window – rather you should change them via computing mathematical additions of width,height,position and adding those to the textual parts of the element. After you are done adding your width and height additions, go to “File” - “Save”. You will need to save the filename as something else such as comdlg32.dll.new because windows will not let you overwrite the file.
  6. Now go to explorer and go to C:\ –> Windows –> system32. Rename the file COMDLG32.DLL to COMDLG32.DLL.original. Windows will not let you delete the file but it will let you rename it. Then copy to here the file you just created in Resource Hacker.
  7. Restart the computer and you should have new enlarged Open-Save Dialogs.

Here is sample code for Dialog 1552 Enlarged:



1552 DIALOG 0, 0, 685, 411
STYLE DS_MODALFRAME | DS_CONTEXTHELP | WS_POPUP | WS_VISIBLE | WS_CLIPCHILDREN | WS_CAPTION | WS_SYSMENU
CAPTION "Open"
LANGUAGE LANG_ENGLISH, SUBLANG_ENGLISH_US
FONT 8, "MS Shell Dlg"
{
CONTROL "Look &in:", 1091, STATIC, SS_LEFT | SS_NOTIFY | WS_CHILD | WS_VISIBLE | WS_GROUP, 4, 7, 57, 8 , 0x00001000
CONTROL "", 1137, COMBOBOX, CBS_DROPDOWNLIST | CBS_OWNERDRAWFIXED | CBS_HASSTRINGS | WS_CHILD | WS_VISIBLE | WS_VSCROLL | WS_TABSTOP, 66, 3, 523, 300
CONTROL "", 1088, STATIC, SS_LEFT | WS_CHILD, 600, 4, 80, 14
CONTROL "", 1184, "ToolbarWindow32", 0x50012B4C, 4, 22, 58, 330 , 0x00000200
CONTROL "", 1120, LISTBOX, LBS_NOTIFY | LBS_NOINTEGRALHEIGHT | LBS_MULTICOLUMN | WS_CHILD | WS_BORDER | WS_HSCROLL, 66, 22, 615, 330
CONTROL "File &name:", 1090, STATIC, SS_LEFT | SS_NOTIFY | WS_CHILD | WS_VISIBLE | WS_GROUP, 19, 361, 44, 8
CONTROL "", 1152, EDIT, ES_LEFT | ES_AUTOHSCROLL | WS_CHILD | WS_VISIBLE | WS_BORDER | WS_TABSTOP, 66, 358, 556, 12
CONTROL "", 1148, "ComboBoxEx32", 0x50210042, 66, 358, 556, 300
CONTROL "Files of &type:", 1089, STATIC, SS_LEFT | SS_NOTIFY | WS_CHILD | WS_VISIBLE | WS_GROUP, 19, 377, 44, 8
CONTROL "", 1136, COMBOBOX, CBS_DROPDOWNLIST | WS_CHILD | WS_VISIBLE | WS_VSCROLL | WS_TABSTOP, 66, 376, 556, 300
CONTROL "Open as &read-only", 1040, BUTTON, BS_AUTOCHECKBOX | WS_CHILD | WS_VISIBLE | WS_TABSTOP, 66, 395, 120, 8
CONTROL "&Open", 1, BUTTON, BS_DEFPUSHBUTTON | WS_CHILD | WS_VISIBLE | WS_GROUP | WS_TABSTOP, 631, 358, 50, 14
CONTROL "Cancel", 2, BUTTON, BS_PUSHBUTTON | WS_CHILD | WS_VISIBLE | WS_GROUP | WS_TABSTOP, 631, 375, 50, 14
CONTROL "&Help", 1038, BUTTON, BS_PUSHBUTTON | WS_CHILD | WS_VISIBLE | WS_GROUP | WS_TABSTOP, 631, 393, 50, 14
}

Code Example Produces This Window: http://i49.tinypic.com/qyilg0.jpg
Sample Resource Hacker BEFORE: http://i50.tinypic.com/1pcvuh.jpg
Sample Resource Hacker AFTER: http://i48.tinypic.com/1zlq0sn.jpg