I don't know what this Windows 7 feature is called, otherwise I guess I'd have more luck googling it, so here goes. If I'm looking at a folder window, using 'list' view, then when the window is large I'll be looking at multiple columns of files/folders. If I see the file/folder that I want, and it's not in the left-most column, when I click on it Windows automatically shuffles everything left so that I'm now viewing that file in the left-most column. Drives me nuts. Anyone know what this feature is called and how to stop it, please?
I've not heard of it or seen it as you describe and I use Windows 7 daily. I have a distinct dislike for Windows Explorer and tend to use Multi Commander at home in preference as it doesn't have any of the Windows Explorer weirdness. However, I may have over complicated my thought process here. Have you also selected View, Options and Change folder and search options? If this is done after changing from detail to list view then click "Apply to all folders" in the view tab it is supposed to keep Windows Explorer with that view format. But then Explorer is weird and no matter what I do it occasionally changes too. Not exactly as you describe but it does change so it may be one of those features that we cannot correct.
Apparently it's linked to full row select, or at least if I've understood what it is that's driving you nuts it is.
Now I've studied it a bit more (for the purposes of this thread and finally trying to solve it) it is something that only happens when I click on a file/folder that's in the right-most column of a list, and anything in that column has a name that is long enough to extend beyond the edge of the current window. So, for example, I might have a bunch of jpegs in a folder that I've opened, and nearly all of them are just called something short like P0001343, but then if among them there's a file with a longer name like "This is the one where Shirty looks really sexy in that leotard", if that happens to be in the right-most column when I click on it with either mouse button, Windows automatically shuffles the columns across so that the whole file name fits in the view, or butts up against the left-edge if it's still too big.
