Open up any folder on any drive and set it the way you you want all the folders to be viewed. Then hit the "Alt" button, then click "Tools", then click "Folder Options", then click "Apply to Folders".
This should work very much the same on Windows XP.
That's that's pretty simple hope this helps somebody out.
Nothing I hate more than when Windows tries to think for me and changes the folder view to a view that they believe that I want because that particular folder contains a certain type of file. Just make the ability to change the view type convenient and you don't have to automatically change it for me.
The Microsoft people tried to make Windows intuitive to people's needs. However if you're an avid computer user an intuitive computer usually gets in the way. The intuitiveness of the Windows operating systems is for the less experienced computer user.