Mac Forum / Applications / Mac Applications / March 2008

Welcome to the wonderful world of .DS_Store files - one of the worst
parts of Mac OS X.  :)

Those stubborn folders of which you speak likely contain .DS_Store files
that are overriding the View options setting.

Knowing this, I'm betting you can change the view of all folders by:

1. Deleting all .DS_Store files from every folder in the file system
2. Using the View Options window to set them the way you want

I haven't ever bothered to try this myself, but I see no reason it
shouldn't work. With that said, you should realize that when you delete
.DS_Store files, you delete *all* view options contained in that file.
And if you delete *all* .DS_Store files, you will affect more than just
folders with List view.

Also, on later versions of Tiger (10.4 and later), .DS_Store files
contain Spotlight Comments of all files in the folder. And Apple may
store other information in them as well.

If you have set the "This window only" option for a folder, that folder
is no longer be affected by changes to the "All windows" settings.  

If you change that window's view options back to "All windows", your
global settings will be applied to that window.

Or, as Jolly Roger said, you could search for and delete all the
.DS_Store files on your hard disk.  That will remove the custom view
settings from the folders that those files are in, and remove any other
information about the folders that Apple stores in those files.