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In XP/Vista, there was an explorer option called 'Simple Folder View' which had the benefit of being able to click on a folder in the left-pane (treeview) and it would expand--with this feature off, you had to double-click to expand.

In Windows 7, I can't find this feature. Is there a way to have single-click expansion on the folder treeview in Windows 7?

4 Answers 4

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If you click on the arrow next to the folder or drive name, it opens with one click only. But indeed it's much smaller than clicking on the full name.

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The options highlighted in this screenshot might help you: Folder Options

This window can be opened by going to Organize -> Folder and search options.

Other options you can configure to 'ease' your experience are detailed here: How to Improve Windows Explorer Using Folder Options

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Classic Shell is the answer

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It contains Classic Explorer:

Classic Explorer

Classic Explorer is a plugin for Windows Explorer that:

  • Adds a toolbar to Explorer for some common operations (Go to parent folder, Cut, Copy, Paste, Delete, Properties, Email). The toolbar is fully customizable
  • Replaces the copy UI in Vista and Windows 7 with the more user-friendly “classic” version similar to Windows XP
  • Handles Alt+Enter in the folder panel of Windows Explorer and shows the properties of the selected folder
  • Has options for customizing the folder panel to look more like the Windows XP version or to not fade the expand buttons
  • Can show the free disk space and the total file size in the status bar
  • Can disable the breadcrumbs in the address bar
  • Fixes a long list of features that are broken in Windows 7 – missing icon overlay for shared folders, the jumping folders in the navigation pane, missing sorting headers in list view, and more
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It's gone in Vista itself too bad and not fixed in Windows 7. From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_features_removed_from_Windows_Vista : A folder tree does not expand automatically while collapsing the previous one in the navigation pane even after turning on "Display simple folder view".

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