How do I get Windows Explorer to display details by default in Windows 7?

Change the view

Begin by changing the view to what you want it to be. In this example, click the View button to the right side of the Windows Explorer window, and then click Details:

This is certainly my preferred view and what I want to see as the default at all times.

Change other options

Before we go further, I want to suggest a couple of other options to be changed and made the new default.

Press the ALT key and a menu bar should appear in Windows Explorer. Click Tools and then Folder options...:

In the resulting dialog, click the View tab:

As you can see, there is a list of options, some checked, some not. My recommendations for these options include:

• Always show menus: Check this if you prefer to see the menu bar at all times. Leave this unchecked if pressing the ALT key to see the menu bar is sufficient.

• Show hidden files, folders and drives: I prefer to have this selected over its counter part, "Don't show...". You will see more files and folders on your machine, most of which you should typically not need to use. However, it's often very helpful to be able to see absolutely everything, particularly when trying to diagnose a problem. There's no real harm in leaving this as "Don't show..." if seeing those extra files only annoys or confuses you.

• Hide empty drives in the Computer folder: This removes from view drives like floppy drives or memory card readers that don't currently have anything inserted. As you might guess, I prefer to see everything always, so I uncheck this option.

• Hide protected operating system files (Recommended): I have no idea why this is "recommended" other than to perhaps protect you from yourself. Once again, I uncheck this because I want to see everything on my machine. Doing so causes an additional warning message to appear as well. (They really want to protect you from yourself apparently.) If you prefer not to see these files, it's okay to leave this at its default setting.

Peruse the list and you may see other things that you might want to change or at least know about. In my opinion, however, they can all be left at their default values, with one very important exception.

[Don't!] Hide extensions for known file types

This option is important enough to warrant some discussion.

The default setting - to hide extensions for known file types - is not secure and should be changed. UNcheck this option.

Here's the problem. A "known file type" is something like a ".exe" or ".doc" file type that the system has been configured to know what to do with. Instead of displaying "resume.doc", for example, Windows Explorer displays "resume", and relies on the "Type" column of the display to alert you to the fact that this is a Word document.

Malware authors may try to fool you by placing system files with names like "resume.doc.exe" on your machine. ".exe" is a known file type, so that when Windows Explorer displays this it displays "resume.doc". Even though the "Type" column may say "executable program", reflecting the fact that the full filename ends in ".exe", you see "resume.doc" and are very likely to think that this is indeed a document that is safe to open.

The problem is it is not a document. It ended in ".exe" and is an executable program.

You may think that you're opening "resume.doc", but you'll only end up running malware that is packaged in the executable file resume.doc.exe.

Again, if you do nothing else here, simply UNcheck this option.

Make it all the default

My steps might be redundant for all, I know, but this is what I do to make things "stick":

• Click Apply to apply all of the changes that we've just made. You should see the Windows Explorer window refresh to reflect the new settings.

• Click Apply to Folders to make the view settings that we've selected the default for all folders of this type.

"This type" is somewhat confusing. There are different folder types - My Pictures, primarily a folder for images might be a different "type" than a plain old folder beneath your computer's name in the left-hand pane. Similarly, "Libraries" are a different beast all together in Windows 7.

If you stumble into folders of a different type than the one in which you made these settings, you may need to change the view again, and then come back to Tools, Folder options... and Apply to Folders again to make the change for those folder types.