How to permanently disable libraries in Windows 8?

[Brandon Live 232]

I already did. Check my other post regarding regarding this topic. I know exactly what I'm talking about thanks.Please stop telling people to do major restorative work to resolve relatively simple problems. It isn't helpful. It doesn't make you look nearly as clever as you might think.

Hi, I don't think we've met. I'm Brandon, I was a dev on the team that built the Libraries feature in Windows 7, and on the team that owned and extended it in Windows 8. My advice was given based on the clues about your troubles I was able to glean from your post. From the sound of it, you've broken something in a an obscure and unanticipated way which will take far more time to diagnose than it would to do a refresh/restore. Whether you take this advice is entirely up to you.

Translation: "I don't know the answer, but felt compelled to post anyway."

No.

[jebus197 9]

Hi, I don't think we've met. I'm Brandon, I was a dev on the team that built the Libraries feature in Windows 7, and on the team that owned and extended it in Windows 8. My advice was given based on the clues about your troubles I was able to glean from your post. From the sound of it, you've broken something in a an obscure and unanticipated way which will take far more time to diagnose than it would to do a refresh/restore. Whether you take this advice is entirely up to you.

No.

Lol. Yeah right.

[xendrome 5,553]

Brandon, obviously you aren't qualified enough to help him, perhaps you could get someone who invented the language code used to assemble the "Libraries" function into the OS. :shifty:

Lol. Yeah right.

He works for MS and he does in fact speak the truth, this is 100% proof you have no interest in listening to anyone. Google "Brandon Leblanc"

[n_K 2,493]

Not an issue cause by me mate. Caused by a slightly flakey upgrade process perhaps. Your solution for now remains a non-solution. I won't be ripping the guts out of my system and rebuilding everything just to fix a relatively minor and slightly irritating bug. End of.

Shut up and ****ing deal with it without moaning then.

/thread.

[Brandon Live 232]

Anyway for what it's worth I seem to have hit on something of a temporary solution, by deleting the libraries folders. So Now the indexer is pointing to a non-existent location.

This means I can cleanly delete files.

You're making my head hurt. How would breaking the default libraries affect your ability to delete files? Are you saying you had the problem only when deleting files via a library? (i.e. you browsed into one in Explorer, deleted something in it, but the view didn't update until you refreshed?) Or are you saying that you browsed to a folder directly (not via libraries) when you hit this problem, but for some reason decided to blame the existence of libraries anyway?

Brandon, obviously you aren't qualified enough to help him, perhaps you could get someone who invented the language code used to assemble the "Libraries" function into the OS. :shifty:

Hah.

He works for MS and he does in fact speak the truth, this is 100% proof you have no interest in listening to anyone. Google "Brandon Leblanc"

Actually I'm Brandon Paddock. Brandon Leblanc is a friend though =P He's a blogger / PR guy, not a dev.

[jebus197 9]

So

YOU modify a windows install beyond

YOU choose to upgrade this modified and unsupported Windows install

YOU thus initiate an untested unsupported upgrade process beyond the scopes of what it was designed for.

then you surprisingly have issues with this upgrade install so...

YOU again do unsupported modifications to windows...

But yeah, it's obviously not your fault, or the results of something you did. sorry, but you're beyond helping, you will obviously never see reason.

and sorry to say, but any forum with people who know anything will tell you a clean reinstall is the only answer. if they say anything else they will just lead you to run around in rings wasting your time, time you could have spent doing 50 reinstalls now. if you supposedly have 20 years experience as a admin, you should know that some problems, can only or are best fixed with a reinstall. but as a experienced administrator like that, you would also know that anyone with your kind of experience keep images of the computers they administrate to fix these problems in 10-20 minutes with a re-image.

Stop warping the truth and lying you oik! (I had other words in mind, but this is the politest I could print). What I did, factually, was take a properly and professionally administered Windows 7 machine and upgraded to Windows 8 in the prescribed manner.

[MorganX 1,044]

Ok :rolleyes: then continue down your path of wasting your's and everyone else's time on the forum, hopefully they will read the previous thread before posting since your original issue was addressed and you choose to not accept the reality of the issue here.

hahaha, I agree with you and was going to ask if he had any UI modding apps installed. Libraries is one of the best features of Windows right now IMO. However, for whatever reason he wasn't to remove them and asked a forum of geeks. No harm no foul.

[jebus197 9]

I don't care if he works for MS, if he does for all I know it could be in the canteen. That's not the point. The point is that this is a small bug that I remain certain can and will be addressed. Perhaps not here, but I assure you I will find a way.

[Brandon Live 232]

Not an issue cause by me mate. Caused by a slightly flakey upgrade process perhaps. Your solution for now remains a non-solution. I won't be ripping the guts out of my system and rebuilding everything just to fix a relatively minor and slightly irritating bug. End of.

If you truly made unsupported changes to "disable libraries" on Windows 7, then performed an upgrade, you cannot expect the upgrade process to understand the totally unsupported/unanticipated/unfathomable changes you made and be able to handle them as you'd like it to.

I think this is some kind of culture issue going on here. I cut my teeth on Unix and Linux systems for nearly 15 years before being forced due to work commitments to pretty much use Windows full time. There I learned how to problem solve and that reinstalling an OS should probably be the last thing you should try to do. Jump forward 5 more years and I find myself in company who seem to think that a full OS reinstall should probably always be your first resort - and who then happily accuse me of being a n00b for telling them that really, it should almost certainly be exactly the opposite.

If you have a good understanding of what you did in the first place, you could make a go at undoing it. But from what you've said, that seems unlikely. And it's not guaranteed to help given that you performed an upgrade after making said changes.

[xendrome 5,553]

Actually I'm Brandon Paddock. Brandon Leblanc is a friend though =P He's a blogger / PR guy, not a dev.

Hah my bad, why did I have Leblanc in my head?

[jebus197 9]

hahaha, I agree with you and was going to ask if he had any UI modding apps installed. Libraries is one of the best features of Windows right now IMO. However, for whatever reason he wasn't to remove them and asked a forum of geeks. No harm no foul.

These guys aren't 'geeks'. Real geeks could find solutions to simple problems like this without recommending major reconstructed surgery. The true measure of a good admin is how many times you have to reinstall an OS on any given system. My count so far on this system in over 2.5 years is a big fat 0. That's the way I intend to keep it. I'm guessing the total combined of all of the guys here is probably in the 100's, if not more however.

[MorganX 1,044]

Stop warping the truth and lying you oik! (I had other words in mind, but this is the politest I could print). What I did, factually, was take a properly and professionally administered Windows 7 machine and upgraded to Windows 8 in the prescribed manner.

I have to say, Windows 8 has some really flaky bugs/issues with some legacy software especially those that modify the UI/Shell. Really weird obscure bugs. So if you upgraded an existing system, it could be something that was already installed on it, or installed and left a calling card of some sort.

Reinstalling probably really is the best solution.

Real geeks could find solutions to simple problems like this without recommending

We're talking about complex software (OS') and a needle in a haystack. I have a couple issues that have no resolution at the moment. If you're 1 in 3 million that are experiencing it, you might be waiting a loooooong time for a fix. :)

[MikeChipshop 3,458]

You seem to be ignoring the fact the issue was caused by you tinkering with files that have then buggered up the upgrade process thus causing more issues after the upgrade.

If you wont even listen to the guy who was in the team that developed libraries in the first place, then there really is no hope.

[jebus197 9]

If you truly made unsupported changes to "disable libraries" on Windows 7, then performed an upgrade, you cannot expect the upgrade process to understand the totally unsupported/unanticipated/unfathomable changes you made and be able to handle them as you'd like it to.

If you have a good understanding of what you did in the first place, you could make a go at undoing it. But from what you've said, that seems unlikely. And it's not guaranteed to help given that you performed an upgrade after making said changes.

Again not true. I can trace my steps back. Just as there was a .reg fix to disable libraries in Windows 7, there was an equal reg fix to enable them. I still have detailed explanations of both. They are commonly accessible via any simple web search.

To be frank I wouldn't care less about libraries on my own personal system (although I never use them and would like a way to disable them in a work environment), if I could find another way to address the original bug, one that did not require a full OS reinstall from scratch.

You claim to be an ace developer. Let's see if that's a challenge you can deal with?

[xendrome 5,553]

The true measure of a good admin is how many times you have to reinstall an OS on any given system.

Umm ok according to who, you? The person borked his libraries and also did an upgrade from Windows 7 to 8 with custom tweaks installed... A "good admin" would have already done a fresh load in this case and moved on in life with a working system.

[Brandon Live 232]

These guys aren't 'geeks'. Real geeks could find solutions to simple problems like this without recommending major reconstructed surgery. The true measure of a good admin is how many times you have to reinstall an OS on any given system. My count so far on this system in over 2.5 years is a big fat 0. That's the way I intend to keep it. I'm guessing the total combined of all of the guys here is probably in the 100's, if not more however.

Sorry, my psychic debugging skills just aren't that good. There are a hundred things that could be wrong. Maybe you deleted or corrupted a SHChangeNotify listener's COM registration. Maybe you messed with some DefView setting that predates Windows 7 (or 8) and is having an unintended side effect with the new view or data layer (added in Win7). Maybe you've got some hook or add-in installed which is eating messages. Maybe you changed some obscure filesystem setting that alters the behavior of notifications. If you provided more detail on what you did, maybe I could make an educated guess. But it's not a problem I've ever encountered, so my best advice would be to do a PC Refresh. That leaves your documents and everything in place, you just have to reinstall desktop apps. Or if you do a reinstall, it will move your existing User directory (and Windows and Program Files directories) to a new folder called "Windows.old" where you can retrieve them after.

[HawkMan 5,232]

Stop warping the truth and lying you oik! (I had other words in mind, but this is the politest I could print). What I did, factually, was take a properly and professionally administered Windows 7 machine and upgraded to Windows 8 in the prescribed manner.

You already admitted to unprofessionally modifying your windows 7 install in unsupported manners

[jebus197 9]

I have to say, Windows 8 has some really flaky bugs/issues with some legacy software especially those that modify the UI/Shell. Really weird obscure bugs. So if you upgraded an existing system, it could be something that was already installed on it, or installed and left a calling card of some sort.

Reinstalling probably really is the best solution.

We're talking about complex software (OS') and a needle in a haystack. I have a couple issues that have no resolution at the moment. If you're 1 in 3 million that are experiencing it, you might be waiting a loooooong time for a fix. :)

Nope won't be doing that. Will live with the bug if it comes to it, although for the moment with the various actions I've taken in-between wasting my time with you lot, it doesn't seem to be an issue right now. So maybe something I tried from the limited advice that is available elsewhere for this issue worked. I will still have to see if it still seems fixed after a reboot, which was the issue on previous occasions.

Anyway I think the odds are slightly better than 1 in 3 million. It seems to be quite a common issue if you read around. I have also seen it before on Windows 7, which as you know I resolved in a very specific way.

[MorganX 1,044]

Again not true. I can trace my steps back. Just as there was a .reg fix to disable libraries in Windows 7, there was an equal reg fix to enable them. I still have detailed explanations of both. They are commonly accessible via any simple web search.

Ut oh! Windows 8, Reg fix ... Here's an example: Microangelo OnDisplay installs a context menu handler to right click on items to change their icons. It creates a CLSID entry in HKCU for this handler. That entry, breaks hyperlinks from working in ALL MODERN UI apps. ALL. Delete that CLSID entry or disable the context menu handler with the proper tool, and they work.

No idea why this CLSID entry breaks Modern UI hyperlinks. I get that you want to find the issue and fix it. I admire your resolve. I can only recommend with Windows 8, you may be engaging in an exercise in futility.

[Brandon H 3,143]

ok, seriously jebus, i've read your previous topic and half of this one, and you REALLY need to step off of your arrogant perch and listen to people.

do you even understand fully what the refresh feature in Windows 8 does? your settings will still be in tact after performing a refresh, you will only need to reinstall your third party softwares (aka once you reinstall said softwares your settings will still be what they were)

refresh is good when you have random issues such as your file explorer issue

and you say that the explorer refresh bug is your only issue, but there's no way to tell, that may be the only issue you notice at the surface and other things could slowly start to go wrong before you realize

[MorganX 1,044]

Umm ok according to who, you? The person borked his libraries and also did an upgrade from Windows 7 to 8 with custom tweaks installed... A "good admin" would have already done a fresh load in this case and moved on in life with a working system.

And a really good admin would have already allocated him a new Virtual Desktop. :p

[jebus197 9]

You already admitted to unprofessionally modifying your windows 7 install in unsupported manners

I admitted no such thing. I made some really quite standard adjustments. That was all.

[MorganX 1,044]

Just for kicks, disable Defender and see if the issue goes away.

[Brandon Live 232]

Again not true. I can trace my steps back. Just as there was a .reg fix to disable libraries in Windows 7, there was an equal reg fix to enable them. I still have detailed explanations of both. They are commonly accessible via any simple web search.

What isn't true? There was *never* a supported way to "disable libraries" (which isn't even what that does, but okay). The first result I found includes a reg file that just horks the shell. Sure it removes the Libraries node from the nav pane, but it also breaks the UsersLibraries namespace location, which isn't actually a library! However, it is a root the shell assumes is always there. Breaking that could totally mess up notifications in a variety of places. It also deletes folder templates types for some reason, I can't fathom what reason that could be. Oddly, it doesn't touch a single thing related to the LibraryFolder code. That's probably for the best I suppose.

Best part is that the "Restore Default Settings.reg" file in the zip doesn't actually put back everything the other file deletes! (i.e. it doesn't restore the COM registration for the component it arbitrarily unregistered)

This is why anyone who's actually in software development wouldn't touch something like this with a ten foot pole.

[Brandon H 3,143]

oh, and another thing, with all the whining you've been doing jebus you could have done a clean install already and have had all your software reinstalled and back how you liked them by now