Skip to main content

Windows 10: Revert File Explorer default view

·188 words·1 min
tech sysadmin technology windows windows-10
James Pettigrove
Author
James Pettigrove
Cloud Engineer with a focus on Microsoft Azure

One of the new features of Windows 10 is Quick Access. Essentially a list of recent and repetitively accessed file and folder locations, Quick Access aims to bring you what you want, everywhere. Seems like a good idea.

But now, when you open File Explorer, it is the default view instead of the typical Windows 7/8 view where by you were presented with the standard User folders (Documents, Pictures etc…) plus disk drives. Not everyone, especially veteran Windows users, will enjoy this change.

Thankfully, it is rather simply to revert the view back to how it was in Windows 7/8:

  1. Open File Explorer
  2. Click on the View tab, followed by the Option icon
  3. Click on the Open File Explorer to: drop down box and change to This PC as pictured below:

Now File Explorer’s default view will look like something that Windows 7/8 users are much more accustomed to.

You can go one step further and untick both Show recently used files in Quick access & Show frequently used folders in Quick access to make Quick Access functionally the same as the old Favourites list in Windows 7/8.

Related

Windows 10: Prevent Wi-Fi settings being shared with contacts
·169 words·1 min
tech sysadmin technology windows windows-10 wireless
Windows 10 introduced a feature named Wi-Fi Sense.
Windows 10: Turn off peer to peer Windows Update function
·206 words·1 min
tech p2p sysadmin technology windows windows-10 windows-update
Microsoft, in a effort to reduce load on their own server farms as well as provided a better experience to customers when using Windows Update, Windows 10 introduces peer to peer technology (like Bittorrent uses) to deliver Windows update.
Fix error 80240020 when upgrading to Windows 10
·92 words·1 min
tech sysadmin technology windows windows-10 windows-update
So you heard the news and decided to update to Windows 10 but your Windows Update threw an 80240020 error?