""" Demonstrates how to propagate a folder's view state to all its subfolders The format of the ColInfo stream is apparently undocumented, but it can be read raw from one folder and copied to another's view state. """ import os import sys import pythoncom from win32com.shell import shell, shellcon template_folder = os.path.split(sys.executable)[0] print("Template folder:", template_folder) template_pidl = shell.SHILCreateFromPath(template_folder, 0)[0] template_pb = shell.SHGetViewStatePropertyBag( template_pidl, "Shell", shellcon.SHGVSPB_FOLDERNODEFAULTS, pythoncom.IID_IPropertyBag, ) # Column info has to be read as a stream # This may blow up if folder has never been opened in Explorer and has no ColInfo yet template_iunk = template_pb.Read("ColInfo", pythoncom.VT_UNKNOWN) template_stream = template_iunk.QueryInterface(pythoncom.IID_IStream) streamsize = template_stream.Stat()[2] template_colinfo = template_stream.Read(streamsize) def update_colinfo(not_used, dir_name, fnames): for fname in fnames: full_fname = os.path.join(dir_name, fname) if os.path.isdir(full_fname): print(full_fname) pidl = shell.SHILCreateFromPath(full_fname, 0)[0] pb = shell.SHGetViewStatePropertyBag( pidl, "Shell", shellcon.SHGVSPB_FOLDERNODEFAULTS, pythoncom.IID_IPropertyBag, ) ## not all folders already have column info, and we're replacing it anyway pb.Write("ColInfo", template_stream) iunk = pb.Read("ColInfo", pythoncom.VT_UNKNOWN) s = iunk.QueryInterface(pythoncom.IID_IStream) s.Write(template_colinfo) s = None ## attribute names read from registry, can't find any way to enumerate IPropertyBag for attr in ( "Address", "Buttons", "Col", "Vid", "WFlags", "FFlags", "Sort", "SortDir", "ShowCmd", "FolderType", "Mode", "Rev", ): pb.Write(attr, template_pb.Read(attr)) pb = None os.path.walk(template_folder, update_colinfo, None)