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I am changing from Windows XP to Windows 7. One thing I cannot stand about Windows 7 is that whenever you mouse over files in Explorer (or other file-browser), it highlights the files with a semi-transparent block.

This is nice, but I want to be able to double-click on the white area background of the directory, and I can't do this with the highlighted selection always there. The hovering-block is always in the way of the background - especially if there are a lot of files in the directory.

(I don't even know what that hovering-block is called; if someone enlightens me, I'll re-title my post)

Is there any way to get the file selector to work like XP?

[edit]

Well, after using Windows 7 now, for several months, I still haven't figured out how to get rid of this!

[later...]

Okay, I still have not found out how to resolve this.

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For each view (Icons, List, Detail, etc), there should be a margin of click-able whitespace on the left of the pane. This is where I right-click if I want to bring up the context menu for the current directory. – iglvzx Jun 21 '12 at 0:34
I know what you mean BGM, it is almost always more annoying than novel. It is particularly frustrating when you have hundreds of photos in a folder in large-thumbnail—mode and you are trying to select multiple files. – Synetech Jun 21 '12 at 1:20
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@iglvzx, that margin is not nearly large enough to be conveniently clickable, certainly not when compared to the space around files in XP. – Synetech Jun 21 '12 at 1:21
Can you elaborate on what double-clicking the white area does for you? It does nothing in my install. Also, right-click anywhere there is no text or picture will bring up the same context menu as the one that you get when right-clicking on a blank area (even if the semi-highlight hover indicator is visible). – horatio Dec 20 '12 at 21:32
In XP it only selected to the length of the text. The hover-block is a newer Windows "feature", and it persists even into the use of other file-managers - like Q-Dir or FreeCommander. In those programs, I can go to the parent directory by double-clicking on the background; the hover block gets in the way. That is the utility of the thing, anyway. If you left-click on the hover-block, the file receives the click instead of the directory background. – BGM Dec 20 '12 at 23:46

2 Answers

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You can shrink the selection box to the name column by disabling Full Row Select. Unfortunately, this has been made difficult in Windows 7: the article at http://www.winhelponline.com/blog/disable-full-row-select-explorer-windows-7/ attempts to shed some light on the issue.

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I shrunk that a long time ago, actually. I want to get rid of it comletely, so that it works like XP. – BGM Aug 13 '12 at 13:29
up vote -1 down vote

Go to Registry Key:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Advanced

Look for Value Name: ShowInfoTip Data Type: REG_DWORD

If not present Create the Value Name [ShowInfoTip]

Modify the Value Data to 0 for ShowInfoTip Disabled

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Your hack is for the tooltip popup, not for the selection block that appears when you hover over a file. – BGM Aug 13 '12 at 13:30

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