I'm not exactly sure what you mean but I'll give it a shot. Go to "view" and there will be a list so that you can see it as small icon, large icon, thumbnail, etc...
Hope this is what you ment?
Kind of what I ment. Everytime I open a folder it is in thumbnail view. I want to open everyfolder in list view. I know how to manually change these, but I want it to be automatic for all my folders.
Choose the layout manually for one folder (like how SimpleSimon described), then in the folder click Tools > Folder Options. In the view tab there's a button to "Apply to all folders". That's what you want I think.