Solved Can you do this in W8 with files and folders ?

W8 seems to have lost the right click option to "align to grid" and to turn off "auto arrange".

Is it possible to arrange files and folders like this ? I think W7 lost this feature too.

When you work with dozens, hundreds even, of files and folders and sub folders it's important to be able to group them logically. It's also a pain to have lost the customise option from folder properties and to now have to navigate via the actual file location to get to it.

W8 seems all about "Apps"... everything has to be an App. It's not all bad but it could be so much better.

Yes you can do it, and you can do it in W7 too. (just tested)

There are easier ways than that to logically arrange files. I have roughly a half million files or so I use and I can find and pull up any file I want in seconds without using that. So even if it were gone there are easy ways to maintain massive amounts of files in such a way you can still find and access what you need quickly and easily.

Thanks folks... I'll no doubt have another play at this although just now I've had to resort to an Acronis image to put things back to pre W8 as the whole system was becoming unusable due to constant disk error messages on both Vista and W8 (I dual booted).

Hello Mooly,

The tutorial below can help show you how to do this by disabling auto arrange in Windows Explorer for Windows 8.

http://www.eightforums.com/tutorials/4299-windows-explorer-auto-arrange-disable-windows-8-a.html

Thanks Shawn... that's great

You're welcome.

Will this auto arrage disable feature work? I work with thousands of photo files all coming from different cameras (wedding photography) and purchased a new computer last year with Windows 7. Could never make it work trying to arrange all my photos from different cameras in to one folder. Any time I moved or renumbered a file it would auto arrange to somewhere I did not want it. Took the whole computer system back and nursed my old XP computer back to life. I need a new system but it looks like windows 7 and 8 will not work for me. Unless this auto arrange disable feature will work on windows 8. Why is there not a little button where you can turn it off with a click? It seems so simple........

Hello Robnor, and welcome to Eight Forums.

Yes, it works just fine in Windows 8. Please read the blue Note and red Warning boxes at the top of the tutorial for it's limitations and usage to help see if it may fit what you are needing. If you like, you could disable auto arrange to give it a try. If it doesn't do what you need, then Option Two will quickly enable auto arrange again for you.

Hope this helps,
Shawn

Trouble is, I have to know for sure before I buy a new system. I may be forced to go with Mac

Do you have a another computer, a friends maybe, that you give this (disable auto arrange) a test drive on to see if it may meet your needs?

One note that could relate to this is:

When you disable auto arrange, and either unzip a file in a folder, move a folder, or rename a folder, it will refresh and auto arrange the files in that specific folder only after each time you do this. Auto arrange is still disabled for that folder, but you will need to arrange the files back to whatever non-auto arranged order you like again after unzipping a file in a folder, move a folder, or rename a folder.

Click to expand...

It works but it doesn't work inside Libraries which where all my stuff is. The ListView control doesn't support Libraries, only ItemView does. Plus it introduces other annoyances in List view like no empty space to left click which Windows 7's ItemsView doesn't have.