From Newsgroup: alt.windows7.general

Windows 7 Ultimate SP1 x64

I created an additional toolbar called Applications. For a long time,
the entries were sorted exactly the way I wanted. Earlier this week,
however, it disappeared. When I made it visitble again, the entries
were sorted differently, with folders at the top and other entries
arranged alphabetically.

I re-sorted it, and it remained okay during a session. When I rebooted, however, it returned to the sort with folders at the top and other
entries alphabetically.

How can I save my preferred sort from one session to the next?
--

David E. Ross
<http:www.rossde.com>

Some Republican officials have denounced the assassination
of Charlie Kirk as a conspiracy by liberal Democrats. Why
then is the attempted kidnapping of the Democrat governor
of Michigan, the shooting of a Democrat state senator of
Minnesota, and the assassination of the Democrat speaker
of the Minnesota state assembly not denounced as a
conservative Republican conspiracy?

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From Newsgroup: alt.windows7.general

On Sat, 11/15/2025 12:30 PM, David E. Ross wrote:

Windows 7 Ultimate SP1 x64

I created an additional toolbar called Applications. For a long time,
the entries were sorted exactly the way I wanted. Earlier this week, however, it disappeared. When I made it visitble again, the entries
were sorted differently, with folders at the top and other entries
arranged alphabetically.

I re-sorted it, and it remained okay during a session. When I rebooted, however, it returned to the sort with folders at the top and other
entries alphabetically.

How can I save my preferred sort from one session to the next?

"What are shellbags in Windows?

Shellbag Definition: Shellbags refers to a group of registry keys and
key data Windows maintains to remember user viewing
preferences in Windows Explorer and Windows Open/Save dialogs,
things like:

Window location/size.
Columns to display.
Column sorting. <===
Icon size.
"

As far as I know, those are LRU (Least Recently Used),
in that there are a finite number of storage locations
in the registry set aside. There could be 5000 or 7000
of them. When you visit this particular directory regularly,
that folder should have storage priority over a folder
you have not visited for a couple years.

*******

Now, don't do this yet. This is just to show some of the bits and pieces.

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/answers/questions/2445476/how-do-i-fix-my-view-settings-and-commands-for-fol

A folder can have a desktop.ini . It helps if the shell32 entry point
number exists. When a shell32 entry point is "bogus" and does not exist,
that can be a symptom of malware. The File explorer usually has a good idea what "kind" of folder it is looking at. I had a problem on WinXP once,
where I was repeatedly "hitting" shell32 on a non-existent entry point.

This one is for my Pictures folder.

[.ShellClassInfo] LocalizedResourceName=@%SystemRoot%\system32\shell32.dll,-21779 InfoTip=@%SystemRoot%\system32\shell32.dll,-12688 IconResource=%SystemRoot%\system32\imageres.dll,-113 IconFile=%SystemRoot%\system32\shell32.dll
IconIndex=-236

The "shell32.dll,-21779" is an entry point. That particular
one uses the column definition of a pictures folder. When File Explorer recognizes the folder content are mostly a certain type, it can
assign a shell32 view to the materials.

The desktop.ini is rendered invisible via an attribute. You can
use the below-table to decide the file attribute word.

C:\Users\username\Pictures\desktop.ini

fsutil usn readdata C:\Users\username\Pictures\desktop.ini

File Attributes : 0x26

You can use the folder options to turn
on the viewing of hidden items. In a Command Prompt a
dir /ah can show hidden items in the current working directory,
which is another way to view them.

FILE_ATTRIBUTE_READONLY = 1 (0x1)
FILE_ATTRIBUTE_HIDDEN = 2 (0x2) <=== How it is hidden FILE_ATTRIBUTE_SYSTEM = 4 (0x4) <===
FILE_ATTRIBUTE_DIRECTORY = 16 (0x10)
FILE_ATTRIBUTE_ARCHIVE = 32 (0x20) <=== (Archive bit)
FILE_ATTRIBUTE_NORMAL = 128 (0x80)
FILE_ATTRIBUTE_TEMPORARY = 256 (0x100)
FILE_ATTRIBUTE_SPARSE_FILE = 512 (0x200)
FILE_ATTRIBUTE_REPARSE_POINT = 1024 (0x400)
FILE_ATTRIBUTE_COMPRESSED = 2048 (0x800)
FILE_ATTRIBUTE_OFFLINE = 4096 (0x1000)
FILE_ATTRIBUTE_NOT_CONTENT_INDEXED = 8192 (0x2000)
FILE_ATTRIBUTE_ENCRYPTED = 16384 (0x4000)

If a directory does not have a desktop.ini , that is OK as it
implies some sort of "default view" is being used.

Anyway, that's a quick dump of potential things affecting your view.

I don't think I'm skilled enough to go much further than that. Some
part of the shellbag is supposed to be storing the setting change, and
it should be persistent after a reboot (assuming the registry is
working properly over the reboot and so on).

Paul

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From Newsgroup: alt.windows7.general

David,

In addition to Pauls description of the shellbags mechanism, its just
possible that your OS ran outof bags to store the folders preferences in. Which can easily happen when you have a bunch of folders.

In my ancient XP I have, under the "HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\ShellNoRoam" registry ke, a value named "BagMRU Size" with the value 5000.

If it doesn't fix your problem than you at least have something ("BagMRU Size") to start searching with.

Regards,
Rudy Wieser


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From Newsgroup: alt.windows7.general

On Sat, 15 Nov 2025 11:56:42 -0500, Paul wrote:

On Sat, 11/15/2025 12:30 PM, David E. Ross wrote:

Windows 7 Ultimate SP1 x64

I created an additional toolbar called Applications. For a long time,
the entries were sorted exactly the way I wanted. Earlier this week,
however, it disappeared. When I made it visitble again, the entries
were sorted differently, with folders at the top and other entries
arranged alphabetically.

I re-sorted it, and it remained okay during a session. When I rebooted,
however, it returned to the sort with folders at the top and other
entries alphabetically.

How can I save my preferred sort from one session to the next?

"What are shellbags in Windows?

Shellbag Definition: Shellbags refers to a group of registry keys and
key data Windows maintains to remember user viewing
preferences in Windows Explorer and Windows Open/Save dialogs,
things like:

Window location/size.
Columns to display.
Column sorting. <===
Icon size.
"

As far as I know, those are LRU (Least Recently Used),
in that there are a finite number of storage locations
in the registry set aside. There could be 5000 or 7000
of them. When you visit this particular directory regularly,
that folder should have storage priority over a folder
you have not visited for a couple years.

*******

Now, don't do this yet. This is just to show some of the bits and pieces.

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/answers/questions/2445476/how-do-i-fix-my-view-settings-and-commands-for-fol

A folder can have a desktop.ini . It helps if the shell32 entry point
number exists. When a shell32 entry point is "bogus" and does not exist,
that can be a symptom of malware. The File explorer usually has a good idea what "kind" of folder it is looking at. I had a problem on WinXP once,
where I was repeatedly "hitting" shell32 on a non-existent entry point.

This one is for my Pictures folder.

[.ShellClassInfo] LocalizedResourceName=@%SystemRoot%\system32\shell32.dll,-21779 InfoTip=@%SystemRoot%\system32\shell32.dll,-12688 IconResource=%SystemRoot%\system32\imageres.dll,-113 IconFile=%SystemRoot%\system32\shell32.dll
IconIndex=-236

The "shell32.dll,-21779" is an entry point. That particular
one uses the column definition of a pictures folder. When File Explorer recognizes the folder content are mostly a certain type, it can
assign a shell32 view to the materials.

The desktop.ini is rendered invisible via an attribute. You can
use the below-table to decide the file attribute word.

C:\Users\username\Pictures\desktop.ini

fsutil usn readdata C:\Users\username\Pictures\desktop.ini

File Attributes : 0x26

You can use the folder options to turn
on the viewing of hidden items. In a Command Prompt a
dir /ah can show hidden items in the current working directory,
which is another way to view them.

FILE_ATTRIBUTE_READONLY = 1 (0x1)
FILE_ATTRIBUTE_HIDDEN = 2 (0x2) <=== How it is hidden FILE_ATTRIBUTE_SYSTEM = 4 (0x4) <===
FILE_ATTRIBUTE_DIRECTORY = 16 (0x10)
FILE_ATTRIBUTE_ARCHIVE = 32 (0x20) <=== (Archive bit) FILE_ATTRIBUTE_NORMAL = 128 (0x80)
FILE_ATTRIBUTE_TEMPORARY = 256 (0x100)
FILE_ATTRIBUTE_SPARSE_FILE = 512 (0x200)
FILE_ATTRIBUTE_REPARSE_POINT = 1024 (0x400)
FILE_ATTRIBUTE_COMPRESSED = 2048 (0x800)
FILE_ATTRIBUTE_OFFLINE = 4096 (0x1000)
FILE_ATTRIBUTE_NOT_CONTENT_INDEXED = 8192 (0x2000)
FILE_ATTRIBUTE_ENCRYPTED = 16384 (0x4000)

If a directory does not have a desktop.ini , that is OK as it
implies some sort of "default view" is being used.

Anyway, that's a quick dump of potential things affecting your view.

I don't think I'm skilled enough to go much further than that. Some
part of the shellbag is supposed to be storing the setting change, and
it should be persistent after a reboot (assuming the registry is
working properly over the reboot and so on).

Paul

Ugh. Shell Bags problem exists since it was born (since Windows 95), and is still bugged even in latest Windows version and build.
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