Windows 7 has a really great feature that allows you to “pin” sub items to the applications you have permanently pinned to your taskbar. For Windows Explorer the jumplist items are sub-folders that you would like to have quick access to. I use this feature all the time to easily access the work folders and documents that I have spread around my network.

I recently had a problem with an item in my Windows Explorer Jumplist that could not be removed. Neither clicking on the blue pin, nor right clicking on the item and choosing “Unpin from this list” did what they were supposed to. Even worse was that it was actually a duplicate item and I didn’t want either of them pinned to my jumplist!

This is a pretty common problem and most of the posts about it on the Internet either say that you can’t fix it, or that you pretty much have to destroy your entire jumplist (and possibly all of your jumplists from every application pinned to the taskbar) in order to remove one frozen item. I discovered a quick workaround that lets you actually remove just the frozen item(s):

1. Right Click on your Start Menu choose “Properties”
2. Uncheck “Store and display recently opened items in the Start menu and the taskbar”
3. Click Apply”
4. Re-Check “Store and display recently opened items in the Start menu and the taskbar”
5. Click OK”

You should now be able to remove the frozen items from your Windows Explorer jumplist:

1. Right Click on the Windows Explorer icon on the Taskbar
2. Click on the blue pin beside each item that you want to remove

Voila! Your jumplist is pristine again!

Windows Vista has a really annoying habit of changing the way that it displays files in folders in Windows Explorer (or My Computer) based on the content in those folders. For example if a folder contains pictures it tends to show small icons (or thumbnails) instead of a simple list of files. And the default view for other file types tends to be a list of file names that doesn’t display any of the other details about the file, such as that date that it was changed or the file size.

Even more annoying is that Vista doesn’t respect the file folder view that you have selected (in the Folder Options dialog) if the contents of a folder changes. For example, if I have a folder that contains only text files that is set to show “All Details”, and then I add some pictures to that folder, Vista will automatically change the view to the “Pictures” view.

I honestly don’t know anyone that prefers to see their files as icons, and I personally want to see all the other details (sometimes called metadata) about my files all the time.

I finally found a permanent fix for this problem. Instead of detailing it here, I’m just going to provide a link to the source of the solution. They even provide a downloadable REG file that you can execute to automatically fix it for you. So, click the following link if you want to see the “All Details” view for all of your folders on all of your drives, all of the time.

Note that this is another Vista tip that I assume will also apply to Windows 7, but I haven’t been able to test that yet. I’ll get back to you sometime on or near October 22nd!!

UPDATE Oct 27, 2009 – This trick is definitely still applicable to Windows 7, and it works perfectly!