Why Windows XP forgets Folder View Settings? Reason & Solution

How many times have you customized your folders in Windows XP by changing their position or display settings, just to find out that all your hard work of re-arranging those icons was lost the next time you restarted your computer?

This is due to a subtle fact that Windows XP by default only remembers the settings for upto 400 folders, therefore if you make more changes to your folders, those changes might not get reflected the next time you restart your PC, because the 400 limit was reached.

If you are interested in expanding this limit to let say 5000 or 6000 (Note: Maximum limit is 8000 for Windows XP), here’s what you have to do, but before you begin make sure you have made a backup copy of your registry in Windows.

1. Click Start Menu, Open Run and type REGEDIT and hit ENTER.

2. Locate the path as shown below:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Shell

In case you can’t understand the path as shown above, try locating one by one; for instance look for HKEY_CURRENT_USER first, then inside it Software, then inside this folder look for Microsoft and so on…

3. Once you are inside the Shell folder; Right Click New->DWORD (32 bit) Value – Reference screenshot

4. Type BagMRU Size, and then press ENTER.

5. Right click on the same file that you have named and click Modify.

6. Click the “Decimal” Radio button and type the BagMRU Size to ‘5000‘ or up to 8000, and then click OK.

Voila! Now your Windows XP can hold settings up to maximum 8000 folders. If you have any trouble applying this tweak, feel free to ask.