Using older explorer.exe's with XP?

[Guest Stab]

I've had it up to here with XP's incompetent handling of open folder windows in "classic" mode. If I have to manually resize one more folder because they all default to taking up 70% of the screen, or manually move around some icons because XP placed them running off the side of the window, I'm kicking my computer accross the room.

So I figure, perhaps incorrectly, that the solution to this is to replace XP's explorer.exe with an older one from a time when Windows could still automatically resize folders. If I replace it with the explorer.exe from Windows2000 or better yet NT4, will XP (A)still work, and (B)retain functionality?

[mara-]

That won't work, it will just make your system unstable. Also, I never experienced that on XP, everything worked fine for me. Open your Folder Options and make sure that option "Remember each folder's view settings" is checked and that option "Restore previous folder window at logon" is unchecked.

Cheers

[Guest Stab]

Define unstable.

I already had "remember each folder's view" checked and "restore previous folder window" unchecked, sadly.

You never had this problem, though? What version of XP did you have?

[iamtheky]

Icons running off the screen

and folders opening 70% of the screen regardless of setting.

both sound like resolution issues. You dont by chance dock and undock this computer or have multiple profiles established for another reason?

[Guest Stab]

Icons running off the screen

and folders opening 70% of the screen regardless of setting.

both sound like resolution issues. You dont by chance dock and undock this computer or have multiple profiles established for another reason?

Not a resolution issue. Never docks, only one profile, and it always runs at 1024x768.

Huh. You never experienced this problem, either? Can you tell me what your explorer.exe says in its version info?

[PC_LOAD_LETTER]

ive used XP since launch and if never seen icons tile themselves outside the window unless there was a resolution change or icon size was ridiculously large with icon spacing set low.

not if you mean the columns in detail and list views are not sized the way you want, open a folder, size it the way you want, then Tools->Folder Options->View tab->Apply to folders (verbiage may be slightly different -in front of Vista at the moment)

alternatly you could use something like Directory Opus if you just want to replace explorer.exe

[Guest Stab]

not if you mean the columns in detail and list views are not sized the way you want

I mean XP completely refuses to automatically resize folders like... Uh, every other version of Windows between 98 and Win2k does when it's set for "classic" style folders, "open each folder in its own window", and "Icons" view. It also doesn't automatically arrange icons in respect to folder size, either. As in, I manually resize a folder window and yet the icons don't budge.

Does anybody know of a site that archives previous explorers? Trying to Google for the win2k version was an excersize in futility.

Seriously, I don't even care if it's unstable. If I break XP it'll just be cathartic at this point.

[PC_LOAD_LETTER]

I think your approaching this problem from the wrong angle, you could probably try every explorer.exe that has ever existed and get 1 of 2 things.

a) an explorer.exe crash

b) the exact same behavior.

almost every behavior in explorer.exe is governed by a registry setting. id look into some of the sorting flags here:

http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=22555

id also check:

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer]

"NoSaveSettings"

I still cant explain the behavior though, i remoted to my XP SP3 machine and tried to reproduce the effect your describing but my icons resize perfectly everytime.

[Guest Stab]

Okay, you won't believe this. But guess what explorer.exe I'm using right now?

The Windows ME version. I kid you not.

This computer has a XP/ME dual boot setup, so out of desperation I just decided to copy explorer out of ME's partition and swap it using Replacer. It's a bit slower and it eats up about 3 megabytes more RAM, but no instability so far. No weird bugs or missing features.

I should mention I'm NOT using the ME explorer as the Windows shell, though. I'm sure doing THAT would make XP instantly go down in flames. Instead, what I use for a shell is Astonshell. So nobody go editing the winlogon\shell entry in your registry to point to an old explorer version.

Oh man... Did I just discover a new Windows trick?

You're right that the default folder window size isn't part of explorer, that's for sure. But the abbility to automatically rearrange icons to fit the folder size definitely is, because now that works.

Any idea where the registry key for default folder size is stored, that is, if it's part of the registry? Maybe under window metrics?

EDIT: Just to make sure this trick doesn't only work if you use Aston or something silly like that, I set the Windows shell to a renamed copy of the XP explorer.exe. And yup, it still works. So at the moment my install has the XP explorer as the shell + the WinME explorer as the filebrowser. ****, that's cool.

If anybody wants to try this for themsevles, or experiment to see what all versions of explorer work under XP, here's a quick step-by-step.

1. Get Replacer(http://www3.telus.net/_/replacer/). You need it so you can change explorer.exe without XP's system file protection overwriting it with the original.

2. Open up your Windows directory. Make a copy of explorer.exe and rename it to something(8 characters or less just to be safe) descriptive. For example's sake, let's just chop off the first E and call it 'xplorer.exe'.

3. Run regedit. Go to My Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon\. See the 'Shell' entry? Change it so it points to xplorer.exe.

4. Double click on Replacer.com, which should be wherever you extracted the Replacer zip package to. With your Windows directory open, drag & drop explorer.exe into the console and press enter. It should now ask you for the file you want to replace it with. Open up the folder where your replacement explorer.exe(I used the version from WinME) is, and now drag & drop it into the console. Press enter.

5. Close Replacer. Reboot. If all goes well, your install should now be running the XP shell with an older, better version of explorer.

Now a word of caution. I'm not sure what'll happen if you try using really old explorers. Like the pre-IE integrated Windows 95 version. I'd try it myself, but I don't have a Win95 install handy. I'm using XP + SP1, so I'm not 100% sure what happens if you try this with SP2 or SP3 or no SP, but my best guess is that it wouldn't be a problem. Here's a rule of thumb(I think); if you can run the old explorer under XP by doubleclicking it, it'll probably function at least sort of. I don't know what happens if you replace explorer with progman, but it might be interesting. I'll try the Win98SE explorer later, but I don't think it'll be much different from the WinME version.

Edited November 26, 2008 by Stab