Missing explorer columns

[bigcumba]

A weird one this - all my mp3's are in one folder - I used to have the artist and album title columns visible in this folder to the right hand side of the attached pic, but not there any more - I tried right clicking on the column headers to add them again, but they aren't available to add... any ideas? To add to it when I hover the cursor over an mp3 file it doesn't show any details other than the file size - very frustrating as I was about to do some CD's and need the details to sort them out!

Thanks in advance!

[Win2Win]

...and of course you paid for these? :)

[bigcumba]

...and of course you paid for these? :)

In a way, yes... :)

[GlosRFC]

In My Computer, right-click on the folder and select Properties. Go to the Customize tab and in the Template section, scroll down to the template for Music (best for audio files and playlists). Click OK and that should reinstall the detail listing options.

One extra tip - you do know that when you're in that folder if you select View, Arrange Icons By...Show In Groups, you can then use the usual Arrange Icons By options to sort the files more efficiently? For example, make sure that Show In Groups is selected and then go back to Arrange Icons By and chose Artist. Now all the files should be sorted alphabetically by Artist name but arranged into groupings. Likewise with Year, Album, Size, Genre, etc. Very useful if you want to create your own CDs.

[bigcumba]

In My Computer, right-click on the folder and select Properties. Go to the Customize tab and in the Template section, scroll down to the template for Music (best for audio files and playlists). Click OK and that should reinstall the detail listing options.



Cheers Glos, I tried that and still no joy I'm afraid...

[Win2Win]

and still no joy I'm afraid...What the hell do you want to do with my sister (Joy) you dirty old man :laugh

[MattR]

BigC,


What you need to do is right click on the bar that has the titles in (date accessed, date created etc). In the drop down list you'll have all those options (artist, album title etc) just click each that you want

[zomby]

Once it's definitely a music folder. Did you try clicking on View then Choose Details ? From there you can check to see if the "Artist", "Album Title" columns are selected to be listed. It may just be that you have hidden certain columns somehow.

[zomby]

Heh, or you could do it Matts way too - both do the same thing

[GlosRFC]

Cheers Glos, I tried that and still no joy I'm afraid...

From what I can gather you don't even get the option to select alternative details so I don't think Matt or Zomby's solutions will work.

Do you have a lot of folders? I think I'm correct in saying that XP defaults to allowing only a maximum of 400 folders to be customised. In theory it's supposed to knock off the oldest settings so that it always remembers the most up-to-date 400, but quite often it'll just stop remembering new settings once it gets to 400. You can change this number to as many as you want using this link:

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;812003#7

I'm also assuming that, because you can't see any options when you right-click the headers, that the columns haven't simply been resized to that they're overlapping one another? It's easy enough to check this out by holding CTRL and pressing the + key on the numeric kepad. This will resize all the columns so that you can drag them to whatever size you want and it might just force XP into providing the names for the columns as well. As well as dragging, if you double-click the right-hand edge of the column title, the column will automatically resize to fit the longest entry.

If either of the above doesn't solve it for you then I'd guess that there's either a registry conflict somewhere between the different Windows Shell modes or else you've managed to set the Group Policy to change the way that folders are viewed. I can point out a few tweaks for you, but give those options a try first.

[bigcumba]

Thanks for the suggestions, and the PM Glos - you should have my e-mail address now - check your PM's :)

[GlosRFC]

File sent - hope something in there helps!

[bigcumba]

First couple of bits haven't fixed it so it's on to the reg file now.... wish me luck! :)

[GlosRFC]

Sounds to me as if you've messed it up good and proper...I feel an XP restore coming on :D :D