Uniform File/Folder Layout

In Snow Leopard these settings affect the parent window and its siblings. Other windows, however, are not affected. There is no true "global" setting any longer.

Window sizes are again determined by your view settings. Now, if you want to do some searching at CNet Downloads or MacUpdate you will probably find any number of utilities that can be used to configure your setup in ways the Finder cannot. And if you search some of the AppleScript sites there was an AppleScript that would change all your windows to a single global setting.

All your individual window settings are saved in an invisible file named ".DS_Store." To begin everything from scratch you need to erase all of them. There are several utilities at the links above that will do that for you so you don't have to seek out each one.

Don't search for "folder" things search for "window" things. You aren't trying to arrange folder icons in a window, but searching with the former will likely return the wrong results.

Also searching MacUpdate is a RPITA. If you want to find anything specifically you need to use their advanced search otherwise you end up with hundreds or thousands of completely unrelated results. Their search engine truly *****. You may get better results at CNet.

Jumping in to offer a way to revert all previously opened folders (not files) to the same setup. See my post: http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=12509022&#12509022

Then, I assume that your installation is a bit hosed. Open the Terminal app, type in sudo, and press the return key. Post what you get. If nothing, create a new admin user account, log into it, and try there.

OK. It appears that the Terminal's working correctly. Next, try this:

*sudo find / -name ".DS_Store"*

and see if you get the Password: prompt. If so, type in your admin password, carefully, since nothing displays on the screen, and hit the return key. You should see a listing of .DS_Store files. Hit CONTROL+C to stop the command. Then, try the one in my other post. If not, report back.

That's not an error, just a normal return. Are you seeing anything, such as these?

/.DS_Store
/Applications/.DS_Store
/Applications/Utilities/.DS_Store

From this command?

*sudo find / -name ".DS_Store"*

Then, all but one of those is gone from your machine. I suspect that the first time you ran

*sudo find / -name ".DS_Store" -depth -exec rm {} \;*

it worked and deleted all the others. Now, you can set your default window setting and Use as Defaults will work. The only one you'll have to reset is the one for your boot volume: /.DS_Store