On Tue, 10 Jul 2007 07:18:02 -0700, Julian
Madness takes its toll. Please have the exact change ready
I know about folder templates, I also know that - bizarrely - the view a
folder presents can depend on how you reached it (though if anyone ... "using
your skill and judgement in 20 words or less" can explain the principles feel
free!
, and I know that there is a 5000 (?) limit on the number of
"individual" views that Vista will remember (if only!)
Are they still using a global FIFO store to track these things?
Sounds strange, given they dump so much stuff in Desktop.ini already
(and take enough risks there to open up an infection vector).
My (increasing) aggravation is that when I change a view on a folder I DO
NOT want the template updated to reflect what I have chosen for this specific
folder! [which is what *seems* to be happening...
There's a setting to remember views for each folder; I presume that's
on (check that it is, just in case). That would then use the system
you describe, but there may be a complicating factor.
Unlike XP and older, Vista no longer uses a single default template
for undefined views. Instead, it switches between a number of such
templates depending on the content it discovers there.
The question is; does this respect or override any per-folder settings
you have "remembered" for that folder?
I suspect it doesn't. In effect, when you set "this is the view I
want for folder X", it may remember "this is the view I want for
folder X as contents of type Y". If it determines it's now type Z, it
falls back to the default settings for type Z, and I suspect your type
Y preferences for that folder are thrown away.
Normally one can appear to disable this type-sensitivity (which is a
PITA; I don't want some dit to suddenly act as a picture gallery just
because someone dropped a JPG in it) by setting all type templates to
the same view, i.e. List.
But this won't help your pattern (if I have deduced it correctly) if
it's still fussing about whether your contents are type Y or Z (even
if it's merely swapping in templates with the same settings).
This stuff needs to die, or at least be killable. I don't want to
wait for some dumb-ass code to wade through thousands of items to
guess what view to use when I just want the same view anyway, and I do
NOT want the OS groping files, for safety (exploit avoidance) reasons.
Ah yes... and how can I persuade Vista to remember the views for a drive
which is mapped, so that if the drive is unmounted and then remounted it is
as I left it.
Now *that's* another story. Goldfish may remember things like that
for seconds, but Windows won't remember removable disks at all.
There are two good reasons for that:
- there are an unbounded number of removable disks
- removable disks may be changed outside the system
It could use the "cookie" approach to remembering these things, i.e.
by writing a Desktop.ini to the disk (bad idea) or a per-installation
entry to an existing Desktop.ini on the disk (better idea, so that
different systems maintain thier own views of the disk).
That has the advantage of scalability (obeys the "do not store
unbounded data in fixed global locations" dictum) but breaks a safety
rule ("do not initiate risk that the user has not indicated an
intention to take"). OK, we know how useless MS is in terms of that
safety rule, but I wouldn't want to encourage worse behavior.
Mind you, they've been breaking that ruls on diskettes since Win95,
writing tracking labels to the boot record (if the PC's drive is bad
and track 0 on the diskette is trashed, bye-bye data) so perhaps
editing an existing Desktop.ini isn't so horrendous, until you
consider this as an attack vector. That risk is mitigated (limited to
a narrower scope of re-infecting the same PC) if settings are tracked
by installtion so other PCs don't process the changes.
In other words: how do I make a folder look some particular way, stay that
way, and not affect anything else - ever... unless *I* decide otherwise?
I'm not sure if you can. MS often offers functionality that works
only within a certain set of conditions, and when it's "eye candy", I
generally don't fuss much about it.
When it's something like "dual-booting XP And Vista works only if you
don't mind Vista losing all Previous Versions and System Restore
fallback", then I get pissed off.
Is there perhaps some way to setup desktop.ini to do it?, he asked (perhaps
over) optimistically.
Maybe, but I haven't swotted that up - I think you're on the right
track, though. Let's see if there's an "everything you hoped you
wouldn't need to know about Desktop.ini" article in TechNet or MSDN...
Search( Vista Desktop.ini )
Hmm, lots of breakages, or at least forum frowns.
http://help.wugnet.com/vista/Desktop-ini-desktop-ftopict26879.html
Funny how XP never had that problem... I just put them in the corner
and forget about them (visible Desktop,ini on Vista desktop)
http://www.winhelponline.com/articles/169/1/
Interesting, that somewhere it gets processed as a generic .ini file
(maybe in the StartUp folders?) if set to -h -s attributes.
Better search, better results (eventually)...
http://mc-computing.com/WinExplorer/desktop_ini.htm
Meaty, but dates from Win2000 era:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/msdnmag/issues/0300/w2kui/
And now the exploits:
http://secunia.com/advisories/11633/
http://vil.nai.com/vil/content/v_vul23006.htm
That's what happens when you f^&% with the "safety rule".
From a great blog:
http://blogs.msdn.com/oldnewthing/archive/2003/08/27/54715.aspx
A good side track...
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/321281
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/305709/EN-US/
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/156568/EN-US/
Not the pot of gold I was hoping to find, though.
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Drugs are usually safe. Inject? (Y/n)
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