Skip to content

Disable Auto Discovery in File Explorer #689

Description

@coldReactive

Checklist

  • I have searched for existing issues/discussions and didn't find any similar ones.

Describe the feature or improvement

Disable Auto Discovery in File Explorer in Windows:

Set-ItemProperty -Path 'HKCU:\Software\Classes\Local Settings\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Shell\Bags\AllFolders\Shell' -Name 'FolderType' -Value 'NotSpecified' -Type String

Afterward, Explorer has to be restarted for this change to take effect.

Examples

Windows acted this way before Windows Vista/Seven.

Additional context

This disables a feature that scans directories every few seconds to determine what the directory's contents are, allowing Windows to automatically change a folder to use thumbnails instead of icons/etc. However, this puts severe strain on Explorer if you have folders with thousands of files/images in them. This scan continues to happen even after File Explorer automatically does the change, as it will change the display type back if it detects it's no longer that type of folder.

Once this change is used/selected, you must manually change a directory's view type.

Metadata

Metadata

Assignees

No one assigned

    Labels

    enhancementNew feature or request

    Projects

    No projects

    Milestone

    No milestone

    Relationships

    None yet

    Development

    No branches or pull requests

    Issue actions