I’ve searched google for answers to this and microsoft help desk doesn’t seem to understand the question, they keep telling people that what they say is happening isn’t happening.
So I’ve added a picture to show what I mean -
I open folders in a specific order so I know where everything is but after some time Windows automatically rearranges them into an order it seems to prefer (this picture is after they have been rearranged), how do I stop it doing this?
Sorry, I don’t know that much about computer terminology, its not just a Window 10 thing though, previous versions of windows did it as well, though they usually had the folders as boxes you could select in the task bar at the bottom of the screen.
it would appear that is is resorting them based on usage
and no aside from a 3rd party app, there seems not to be a way to lock them in a particular order
I noticed it reordered them based on which window i used the most.
I would guess that it is part of the whole prioritize by use scheme that windows does.
it tries to do many things based on what you use the most, so you can open run and find those things faster
I’m really sorry for bumping this thread and I’ll only do it once, but I’m studying at home today and every time I leave my PC for a couple of hours or so and then come back to it Windows 10 has automatically rearranged the preview folders and I have to manually place them back into my chosen order, its really annoying. Does anyone have any ideas?
Very often when a topic like this arises, it turns out that there’s a way to achieve the end result you are aiming for that is easier than the way you are currently trying.
That may not be the case here, of course, but I feel it’s worth asking anyway:
Is it the same set of folders that you open every time? (If so, you might want to pin them to your quick access list).
What is it that you’re actually trying to do, that necessitates having a bunch of folders open in a predictable order?
Well I imagine there is probably an official way of doing things but I’m not computer trained so its just how I’ve learned to do it!
At the moment I have bought a new external hard-drive and I’m trying to copy all the files from my current internal hard-drive to it but trying to put them into some sort of order (instead of the big mess they’re currently in).
So, looking at the way I have the preview folders set up at the moment I have from left to right, ‘INT’ (everything I’ve downloaded from the internet which has caught my interest for the past ten years or so), then ‘MEDIA - TEXTS’ (for text files, with sub-folders but thats not important), ‘MEDIA - PICS’ (the same but for picture files) ‘MSB’ (music files) and then ‘MEDIA - MSC’ (with subfolders as I try to arrange them as well).
I open the INT folder, for example, and select which I files I want, click on the ‘MEDIA - TEXTS’ folder and put them where I want and so on, transferring source to destination in a left to right movement I suppose.
But I leave my PC for a while or put it in sleep mode and when I come back Windows 10 has rearranged the folders to read from left to right, for example, ‘MEDIA - PICS’ then 'MEDIA - TEXTS ', ‘MEDIA - MSC’, ‘MSB’. So I then have to close them and reopen them in the order I want.
It isn’t the same set of folders everytime. I’ve actually tried reading the Windows support forums and other people have the same issue but Microsoft doesn’t seem to understand the question, they either answer a question that wasn’t asked or tell the person that what they say is happening isn’t actually happening.
Thats confusing I know, but thank you for reading.
Just Google seach on the words “save desktop”. There are a lot of programs out there that will let you save a desktop, and, after Windows decides to change the desktop (which it does at the drop of a hat), restore the desktop you saved with one click. I’ve used these programs for ages - most of them are tiny, free, very easy to use, and work like a charm.
I’m not entirely sure what is happening, because I don’t really understand Windows; but since I’m on KDE — being a very reactionary man who likes stuff that works simply — I use Konqueror as a file manager, although Dolphin is nearly as good, certainly for copying, is there some reason you don’t just use an old-fashioned twin-pane file manager ? Total Commander has been around since the Dark Ages, and never gets worse. Suitable for all Windows versions. Their image page will offer some suggestions.
Thank you, well I suppose I’ve just got used to doing it this way.
Sorry I meant I have to close all the folders and reopen them in the order I want, I don’t think there is a way to click and drag them to a new position.
It took me a while to understand what you’re talking about… and this is still a guess. By “rearranging folders”, do you mean that Windows 10 is rearranging the previews that show up when you push alt-tab?
If you think alt-tab is a way to go through your folders, maybe that’s what’s confusing… Microsoft did not intend it to be used that way. Alt tab is for cycling through all your recently opened windows, including folders but also other programs, in the order that they were most recently used. So as you switch between open windows (whether they’re folders or something else), their order in the alt-tab “stack” will get shuffled around too based on which ones were mostly recently open.
If you just have a bunch of folders you need to go through on an occasional basis, I would instead suggest right-clicking on the taskbar (the bottom bar on the screen, but anywhere in a blank area). Go to Settings and then change “Combine taskbar buttons” to “Never” (just temporarily). That way all your folders will show up individually, by name, and you can easily click on the one you want without pushing alt-tab at all. And you can drag them left and right at will on the taskbar and they’ll stay put, mostly.
If you need a certain set of folders to stay easily accessible, in the order you define, there are three other ways to make that happen (again, bypassing alt-tab altogether):
Right-click on them on the taskbar and click “Pin to taskbar”. That will give them their own permanent icon and space on the taskbar.
Drag/pin them to the Start Menu.
Make a new folder somewhere (anywhere) called “My Favorite Folders” or something similar. In that folder, drag SHORTCUTS (not copies, just shortcuts pointing to the originals) of all the other folders you want. Then right-click an empty part of the taskbar again, go to Toolbars -> New Toolbar… and then select the “My Favorite Folders” you just created, the one that contains all the new shortcuts. Then you’ll see all the shortcuts in that new toolbar. If you shrink the toolbar down enough, it’ll become a popup menu instead.
Use a third-party tool like Stardock Fences to create a nice part of your desktop that you can organize and protect however you like, absent Microsoft’s intrusions.
Feel free to ask for more explicit instructions with any of those options, if ya need… hope that helps a bit
Correction to my last post: Sorry, I realize now that you’re talking about the taskbar previews when Windows collapses them into an icon. It’s got nothing to do with alt-tab, but the logic and workarounds are both similar. Basically, uncollapse them into individual entries on the taskbar or use one of the four permanent solutions above.
This might not help at all - but having been in similar situations in the past, I usually tackle it by:
[ul]
[li]Creating a new desktop folder (let’s name it ‘banana’)[/li][li]Opening it and creating shortcuts inside it for all of the different folder resources you want (do this by right-click and drag to the banana folder, then selecting ‘create shortcut here’)[/li][li]Renaming the shortcuts to enforce sorting - i.e. renaming the default shortcut name ‘INT - Shortcut’ to ‘01 - INT’; renaming ‘MEDIA - TEXTS - Shortcut’ to ‘02 - MEDIA - TEXTS’ etc). This doesn’t rename the actual folders, only their shortcuts that appear in the banana folder.[/li][/ul]
This won’t force Windows to keep them sorted in the ‘peek’ list that pops up out of the taskbar item (because opening the shortcut opens the actual folder), but they will stay sorted in the desktop folder - and dragging an item to the shortcut in banana is the same as dragging to the actual folder.
