I finally got fed up with having to change my view to details every time I navigated to a folder. Learned how to set the default view in Windows XP from this post.
Thanks to Susan Daffron!
Fortunately, this change is easy. Double-click the My Computer icon on your desktop or open Windows Explorer. Navigate to your C drive and double-click a folder to open it.
To set the view, you can either use the View menu, or the drop-down Views toolbar button. You can choose from Thumbnails, Tiles, Icons, List, and Details. In this case, choose View Details to show all the file details. Once you have this one folder the way you like it, choose Tools|Folder Options.
Click the View tab and at the top, click the Apply to All Folders button. Windows shows a dialog box that says, "Set all the folders on your computer to match the current folder's view settings (except for toolbars and folder tasks)?
Changes will occur the next time you open them." You want to click Yes to make Windows apply the view changes.
See the full post here: http://www.logicaltips.com/LPMArticle.asp?ID=508