Disable Highlighting Or Full Row Selection Feature In The Details View Of Windows Vista
In Windows Vista Explorer when you select to view folders and files in Details, a particular chosen row is highlighted for the whole line. However, for a file or folder itself, you can choose any details column and then select or highlight any file and folder. Windows Vista offers new performance different from Windows XP where Windows Explorer will be highlighted nearly on “Name” column.
The modifications have some advantages and disadvantages. The only one advantage is that you can pick a file or folder simply by clicking anywhere on the row. However, you should spend some time to become familiar with it. It is also little bit problematic or difficult when you have to right click on the background of the folder rather than opening properties of folder or file.
In addition to this you can’t unselect or deselect all chosen files or folders by just left-clicking on the blank space within Windows Explorer, as before. By default, this full row select feature is turned on, which makes it difficult to scroll to the edge or bottom, by avoiding the selectable items, to click on any empty space.
Now, it is possible to stop the feature of selecting the full row highlight in Windows Explorer of Vista OS. By stopping this feature you can select files or folders by just a mouse click or taking the mouse pointer above the “Name” column. Also you can highlight the selected file or/and folders to display them only on the “Name” field. Actually, there are are a small number of methods to stop the full row selection feature in Windows Vista OS.
1. Using Keith’s VBScript Method
A VBScript which has been created by Microsoft MVP Keith Miller is able to stop the full row selection feature in Vista operating system, without disturbing or changing the saved settings for folder views.
You can download and extract ClearFullRowSelect.zip file to stop full row select feature. After unzipping simply run the VBScript file named as ClearFullRowSelect.vbs. You should restart a computer or restart the Explorer.exe.
To reset back to the default Widows Vista, simply download RestoreFullRowSelect.zip and extract. Simply run the undo VBScript “RestoreFullRowSelect.vbs”.
2. Hacking Windows Registry
It needs the resetting of saved folder types and folder views. For hacking the registry download the file named as fullrowselect.zip. Extract that file and run the enclosed the file
“disablefullrowselect.reg”. This will merge the extra registry keys. The feature to select full row will be turned off. Restart your PC or just restart explorer.exe application so as to make the modification successful.
An alternate method to this as follows.
- Go to Start Menu à Run, type regedit, registry editor widow will be opened. Navigate to the following registry sub key.
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Advanced
Then add a new DWORD (32-bit) value named as a FullRowSelect in the sub key. Set the value data as 0.
After this you should reset and remove the saved settings for folder views in the registry window. Because the folders along with this data will disregard the value of FullRowSelect plus, you need to use the setting as of their own equivalent Bags registry key (Flags value below the Bags registry sub key that saves the settings into DWORD value) in its place. For this reason you should navigate and delete the next registry sub keys:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Classes\Local Settings\Software\Microsoft \Windows\Shell\Bags
To revert back to original default settings in Vista, you can apply the registry file named as enablefullrowselect.reg within the ZIP archive. For users having a preference to DIY, remove the value name of FullRowSelect. Then rearrange the folder views settings details.
Restart Windows Vista or restart explorer.exe to take effect the full change.
3. Using the Explorer Plug-in “QT TabBar“
The Explorer plug-in QT TabBar is especially designed for Windows. This plug-in offers folder grouping option, tab browsing, histories and many other features. By using QTTabBar you can stop full row select feature in Vista.
- First of all download and then install QTTabBar.
- Launch Explorer.
- Press “Alt” button to display the classic menu.
- You need to right-click on blank space in the right side of classic menu. Go for QT Tab Bar to display its bar.
- Click on the Options button.
- Go to the Misc. option.
- There is a checkbox for the Full row selection in details view option, just uncheck it.
- Confirm the alternative of Hide menu bar.
- Hit OK. Disregard whichever error that displays.
- Restart Windows Explorer to create the modifications successful.
Note:
If you are switching as of a different type of folder view to “Details” view type then the feature full-row selection will possibly be enabled within the existing directory. You can resolve and fix this issue by changing to one more folders. After that view the previous folder, you will see that the folder view now doesn’t perform full row selection.