Folder Template - Set Default for All Folders in Windows 8

How to Set a Default Folder Template for All Folders in Windows 8 and 8.1​

   Information

This tutorial will show you how to set all folders to use the same default folder template that you select in only your user account in Windows 8.

This will also allow you to enable or disable Automatic Folder Type Discovery.

   Note

Automatic Folder Type Discovery is when Windows will automatically change the folder template of a folder to match the file type of the last file added or saved in the folder. For example, if your folder contains music files and you add a picture file, then Windows may change the folder template and view to the "Picture" template to match the new picture file.

By setting a specific template (steps 2 to 6) to be the default for all folders, you will disable Automatic Folder Type Discovery.

By restoring the default templates (step 1) of all folders, you will enable Automatic Folder Type Discovery.

   Warning

This (steps 2 to 6) will not change the folder template of library folders.

   Tip

Windows Update Issue Notice:

Folder's view settings continuously changes between different folder types in Windows

EXAMPLE: "General Items", "Documents", "Pictures", "Music", and "Videos" Folder Templates
NOTE: These screenshots are using the default view for each folder template. What you see will also depend on what you have Group by, Sort by, Arrange by views and icon size or view set as.

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Here's How:

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1. To Restore Default Folder Templates for All Folders​

NOTE: This will also reset all folder views back to default as well.​

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A) Click/tap on the Download button below to download the file below, and go to step 7 below.​

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Restore_Default_Folder_Templates.bat​

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2. To Set General Items Folder Template as Default for All Folders​

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A) Click/tap on the Download button below to download the file below, and go to step 7 below.​

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All_Folders_Use_General_Items_Folder_Template.bat​

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3. To Set Documents Folder Template as Default for All Folders​

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A) Click/tap on the Download button below to download the file below, and go to step 7 below.​

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All_Folders_Use_Documents_Folder_Template.bat​

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4. To Set Pictures Folder Template as Default for All Folders​

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A) Click/tap on the Download button below to download the file below, and go to step 7 below.​

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All_Folders_Use_Pictures_Folder_Template.bat​

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5. To Set Music Folder Template as Default for All Folders​

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A) Click/tap on the Download button below to download the file below, and go to step 7 below.​

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All_Folders_Use_Music_Folder_Template.bat​

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6. To Set Videos Folder Template as Default for All Folders​

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A) Click/tap on the Download button below to download the file below, and go to step 7 below.​

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All_Folders_Use_Videos_Folder_Template.bat​

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7. Save the .bat file to your desktop, and run it.​

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8. If prompted, click/tap on Run. ​

NOTE: If you like, you can stop getting the Run prompt by unblocking the downloaded .bat file.​

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9. You will now notice your screen flicker as explorer is restarted to apply the registry changes.​

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10. You can delete the downloaded .bat file if you like.​

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That's it,
Shawn

Related Tutorials

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• How to Back Up and Restore Your Folder View Settings in Vista, Windows 7, and Windows 8
• How to Change the Template of a Folder or Drive in Windows 8
• How to Disable Auto Arrange in Windows 8 Explorer to have Free Sorting
• How to Change Icon Size and Layout Folder View in Windows 8 File Explorer
• How to Set a Default Folder View for All Folders in Windows 8
• How to "Apply to Folders" a Custom View to All Folders with Same Template in Windows 8
• How to Reset Folder View Settings Back to Default in Windows 8
• How to Change the Width of Columns in Windows 8 File Explorer
• How to Change the Order of Columns in Windows 8 File Explorer
• How to Add or Remove Columns in Windows 8 File Explorer
• How to Sort, Group, and Arrange Items by a Column in Windows 8 File Explorer

 

[harrisonaard1]

Lovely and simple fix. I do wonder why some of these Win 8 'ideas' were made up by making it more awkward and involving more button pressing. I'm still saving up for a '7' Disk.

 

[SolarSystem]

How do I get this to apply to ALL folders, including library, and removal media folders?

Or: how to delete or disable all templates except general

 

[Brink]

Hello Solar, and welcome to Eight Forums.

Folders and Libraries are two separate items.

All folders added to a library will share the same folder template in that library no matter what folder you set the folder view in.

To have separate folder views per folder, you will need to open the folder from it's actual location instead of from the library.

For example: "C:\Users\UserName\Documents" VS Document library.

Hope this helps,
Shawn

 

[Silvera]

Those are all preset as you have noted, but I would like to customize the order for all folders and set different columns widths for different types/groups of folders. Is customizing the columns order possible and is setting column widths for selected folders possible. I have over 300 thousand photos all had a specific folder setting that was created daily as I collected. I immediately hated Windows 8.1 when I found that it was reformatting them to "Photo View". I have seen your how to tutorial to turn of the auto formatter. I plan to use it but I would like to recreate my custom columns arrangements. I am assuming that I would turn off the auto and then do the customizing.

 

[Brink]

Hello Steven,

If you like, you could use the method in the tutorial below set how you want a specific folder template to look, then apply it to all folders that use the same folder template.

http://www.eightforums.com/tutorials/9751-folder-view-apply-folders-windows-8-a.html

Hope this helps,
Shawn

 

[Silvera]

Thanks Shawn,

I guess I was not paying attention when I reviewed the list above. Sort of embarrassing...

 

[Brink]

No worries mate. Nothing to be embarrassed about. See my signature about asking questions.

 

[Silvera]

Shawn, Thank You very Much!!! It worked great. You saved me a lot of frustration and time!

 

[Brink]

You're most welcome.

 

[jdw]

As a warning to anyone who tries this. When I clicked on the download button, apparently the batch file ran on it's own. I was left with a blank screen and no desktop, with only a couple programs still running minimized where the taskbar used to be. Once I removed the battery and re-started the computer things were back to normal with no apparent damage to the system.

 

[Brink]

Hello JDW, and welcome to Eight Forums.

It sounds like you clicked on "Run" instead of "Save" when downloading the .bat file.

What happened to you is that something interrupted the restarting of explorer. You can open Task Manager (CTRL+SHIFT+ESC), click on File (menu bar), click on Run new task, type explorer, and click on OK. This will restart explorer for you to be back to normal.

 

[jdw]

Thanks for the reply.

I'm not sure how I managed to run the program. It had downloaded to the desktop. Could have been something I inadvertently did with the touchpad.

I did some experimenting and here's what I found out. When I access and run the .bat file through file explorer everything works fine. After a short pause the start screen and the desktop return and are accessible. However, if I access the .bat file through the download button on my browser (firefox), and run it from there, the desktop does not return. When that happens, I was able to restart explorer see the desktop and start screen with the task manager method you described. Thanks for that tip.

So, at least on my computer, having the browser open seems to prevent the restart of explorer after the batch file runs. Other than that, it worked fine.

 

[Brink]

Good news. Yeah, it's always best to save to say desktop first, then run it. I suppose if your touchpad has tap to click enabled, you may have tapped the touchpad when the pointer was over the .bat file and ran it that way.