So I thought they'd changed. Silly me.
I played with Windows 7, was impressed by its maturity, its speed, its huge improvement over the car crash that was Vista.
I liked some of the graphics, thought they'd removed some bad parts and made them better.

And then I came across the bat-shít crazy hair-tearing idiocy that is the Windows 7 Control Panel View 'options'.
I have worked in IT for many years. Whatever was wrong with XP wasn't the Control Panel.
I don't want anything fancy. I want a list, not icons. I want alphabetical icon columns that flow from top to bottom, then to the top of the next column.
Not from left to right, then next row, repeat.

What is so hard about that? Why oh why oh why would any GUI can't-justify-my-job-so-going-to-make-shít-up moron working at MS even come up with the idea? What was their pitch?
"Hey guys, how about we strip all View options out of the Control Panel, apart from Category View (what a cluster-fûck! Have they never looked at Leopard's equivalent?), Icon View (Large) and Icon View (Small)? But wait! Let's make sure the user cannot change the Row View to Column View. That way, everyone in the Western Hemisphere will have to spend 4 times as long looking for all their icons! What do you think?"

Yes, that's how books scan, in rows from left to right, I don't deny that it might be easier for some people, but I am not among them.
Why on earth would they actually do work that removes the option to change the view? They actually had to think about it, then do it.

I've searched for a long time, there are workarounds (make a new folder, drag each icon over to make a shortcut then format view as required) but all are incomplete or time consuming.

Does anyone have any fixes or comments on this idiocy?
Thanks,

I must admit, I've been using Windows 7 since a week before the official release (the distributor messed up and sent out the DVD a week early 8) ) and I hadn't noticed that. I have always looked at it in left to right, top to bottom mode, not top to bottom left to right...

That is how I used to look at it in Windows 2, Windows 3, 95, 98, 2000, XP and Vista...

A bit strange but I hadn't noticed so it cant worry me that much.

Ah well, if you're used to it then I guess it's easy.
My problem is I'm used to seeing everything in straight list view, columns flowing down. I hate the other views, especially large icons.....

And since I go at a fairly breakneck speed using the mouse, it slows me down like a sprinter finding a hurdle track....
The fact that they purposely removed it just leaves me scratching my head.

Maybe I should get out more.
But there are people outside.....

Try this. Create a folder on your desk top as below ( god mode can be anything )
GodMode.{ED7BA470-8E54-465E-825C-99712043E01C}

Yeah I tried this while I was googling before posting but it didn't really do what I wanted.
Plus Microsoft say it's not really for use and may have unpredictable results.....

thanks though.