Randomly changing window explorer view for each folder?

I want each folder to have a custom view. For general files, it's details
view with name, size, date modified.
However, sometimes this setting sticks, sometimes it changes to something
else with no ryhme or reason (e.g. sometimes it would be grouped by date,
with "date taken" column instead of date modified).

Some people say this can be fixed with a registry patch, some say it cannot
be fixed at all. What is the story on this?