Finder "View Options" malfunction

I believe this started when I updated to 10.4.6, but my "Applications" (my default "new window" in the Finder) folder always opens in column view the first time after restarting. To explain further: when you open a window and change its "view options" to "this window only" or "all windows," the background color may change, or it may tile the icons, etc. These changes should remain every time you open that particular folder henceforth.
This was always the case for me. Even after shutting down and restarting my computer, when I open a new window... bam! icon view, arranged by name, orange window background. Since updating to 10.4.6, I had to go back and manually fix all these windows. What's worse, is that every time I restart my computer, all the settings reset! The Finder opens up any window in column view, and when I switch to icon view, I have to manually select "all windows" in the view options to get it back the way it should be.
I have "open new windows in column view" UNCHECKED, and, as I said, my computer will remember these settings until I restart. I wonder if it is somehow related to this problem that I've also had since updating: http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=438924&tstart=0
Thank you very much for any suggestions you might have.
-Ryan

I'm bumping this thread because I have a very similar problem, and no one has solved it yet. I also have additional symptoms to report that might help narrow down a possible cause of the trouble.
I have two boot drives, an external third party FireWire drive and an internal SATA drive from Apple. Only the internal drive has this problem, and it behaves the same way when booting from either drive. Both drives are at 10.4.6; but I downloaded the Combo updater to install 10.4.6 on my internal drive, whereas I let the Software Update application update my external drive to 10.4.6.
Here are the symptoms:
• After restarting my Mac with either drive, the View Options for my internal SATA drive always revert to Icon View while the view options for my external FireWire drive remain just the way I left them — in List View.
• Furthermore, all of the root level folders (Applications, Library, System, Users, etc.) for my internal SATA drive always revert to Icon View as well. Beyond that level (Applications/Microsoft Office 2004, for example), the View Options settings remain intact, just the way I left them.
• In addition, the window that opens when I double click the icon for my internal SATA hard drive always returns to default position and size, rather than the position and size I last used while my external FireWire drive's window always correctly remains the size and shape it was in before restart.
• Last but not least, when I return my internal SATA drive's setting to List View, the Application and Library folders always default to a hierarchical display of their contents (triangle pointing downward).
For what it's worth, the problem didn't rear its head immediately after I installed the 10.4.6 Combo Update. It happened at least two weeks later — after installing Toast, Jam, Peak Express, DiskWarrior, and TechTool Pro. I've since uninstalled all of those programs (using MacMagna Uninstaller), but the View Options problem remains.
To reiterate, this problem ALWAYS happens to my internal SATA drive but NEVER to my external FireWire drive, no matter which drive I boot from.
Failed Troubleshooting:
Trashing com.apple.finder.plist and com.apple.sidebarlists.plist failed to remedy the problem. This doesn't surprise me at all because my external FireWire drive and my internal SATA drive each have their own copies of those files, yet the internal SATA drive has the same symptoms when either drive boots. In other words, the problem must be system independent.
Upon reaching that conclusion, I tried zapping my G5's PRAM; but that also failed to remedy the problem.
I'm not all that familiar with the G5 architecture, but it's apparent that some settings are boot drive independent. If so, I don't know where these settings are stored. For example, when I boot from my internal SATA drive and I turn off Spotlight Indexing by dragging and dropping my drives one by one into the Privacy frame of the Spotlight window, those settings are retained when I boot from my external FireWire drive. (It's an unfortunate consequence as far as I'm concerned, but that's another topic.)
On the one hand, it seems petty to worry about this problem as it's really a minor inconvenience. On the other hand, this scenario last occurred months ago on the internal SATA drive that shipped with my Mac. Then a month ago, its operating system became corrupted and the drive developed bad blocks. I wound up replacing it under my Apple Care plan, and I'm just finishing setting up the new drive from scratch. Perhaps the two problems are unrelated; but if they're not, then I dread what lies ahead, because I just spent three weeks diagnosing and reinstalling my setup!
I hope that all of this info helps someone to help those of us who have encountered this problem. I'd also like to thank Peter Walker for his Automator script workaround (posted above). With it, I'm able to temporarily, automatically correct all of the display problems, except for the undesired window size and hierarchical display.
Thanks, in advance, for any further assistance.
Best,
Geoff
Dual 2.5 GHz G5   Mac OS X (10.4.6)   3.5 GB RAM

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