Vista long filenames showing

Maybe one of you guys can help out. I use Vista x64 and I browse my explorer windows in the 'List' view. Just recently (well, today actually) my main music folder has decided it will not shorten the file names (limit the amount of characters shown) and is showing the full length, which means I am only seeing one column until I scroll along to the right as some names are LONG. This is very annoying. It doesn't do it in any other view mode and it doesn't do it if I open a different folder (they're shorted with the '...' at the end), and yet directly or indirectly as soon as I open the music folder they are full again. As I wrote earlier I've tried the different 'view' modes and putting it back does nothing, so I'm perplexed why it's happened and how I can fix it.

Any tips?

ETA: Oh, I have to say it now seems like every folder's doing the same thing, and if I right click the 'Name' tag, go to 'More' and select the width for columns it does not save when I exit the folder and re-enter.

This is how it looks now:



and this is how it used to look, and how it temporarily looks if I switch the view to medium/large/extra large icons and then back (although as soon as I refresh the window, close, etc it reverts back):



I did once use a registry edit to stop Vista changing the folder view due to folder content (I think this was it here, not sure), but I don't think that has any impact on this.

Did you try this Brink tutorial?

http://www.vistax64.com/tutorials/70819-windows-explorer-folder-view-settings.html?filter[11]=File Folder Settings

Aaah, the "Disable Automatic Folder Type Discovery for Templates" section was what I was referring to having done before in the past, so tomorrow (as it's late here now) I'll try the manual "Reset Folder View Settings" part but I seriously have my doubts it will work - even a system restore to earlier didn't. It seems each folder's column is as large as the longest file name inside (up until the edge of the window, that is), so folders that contain smaller file names display more columns but I have far more that do not, as per my example. It certainly never used to do it (screenshot 2) and I'm perplexed why the length of the characters is over-riding all else, and why it's all hunky-dory when I switch to a different view type and back (or change the column width) but refuses to save.

I don't believe I've ever seen what you show in your screen shots even in Win 3.1. That's weird. It's probably worth a post on MS site. Unless you have a corrupted registry(which if you did a restore shouldn't be) I don't know what it could be if not malware or just a plain bug in the system.

btw you're not "Gimping" us along are you? That's really a bizarre bug.

MilesAhead said:

I don't believe I've ever seen what you show in your screen shots even in Win 3.1. That's weird. It's probably worth a post on MS site. Unless you have a corrupted registry(which if you did a restore shouldn't be) I don't know what it could be if not malware or just a plain bug in the system.

btw you're not "Gimping" us along are you? That's really a bizarre bug.

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No, no, absolutely not, and I really can't see it's Malware as it would be the most pointless sort ever, haha. I am going to try that reg thing mentioned above and if/when that fails (heh) just give up, I guess. It's hardly critical but is annoying.

The registry thing made no difference, bah.

bobby1 said:

The registry thing made no difference, bah.

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Sounds like it's just broken. I'd try MS forums. Maybe there's a work-around in the knowledge base.