I've read about how to make every Finder window adopt the same settings on Apple's support site but when I go to try it own my own MBP, it doesn't work. Say I choose list option with medium size icons, then I go to View Options and ensure the All Folders option is selected, the very next folder I open goes back to the default view. I've tried shutting down and restarting - is there something I'm missing about this??

Edit: note that I'm new to Macs and I notice that the options windows don't have OK/Apply buttons like Windows, so is it just assumed that whatever settings I choose, when I click the Red X to exit it hangs on to those settings? Maybe that's where I'm going wrong?

Did you try setting it to "All Windows" before selecting all your settings?

Clicking the Red X should be fine.

I find some things when I install them still have a custom setting, but if I open the view options and set it to "All Windows" it fixes them too.

Yeah thanks, I gave that a go. It still doesn't work for some windows. I'm wondering whether it's because I copied a whole bunch of files and folders from DVD (music collection from Windows) so it doesn't apply the settings to any album folder I haven't been in before, but maybe folders I create with stuff in them from here on in it will work. Bit frustrating but I can live with that as I use iTunes to access the music rather than Finder most of the time anyway!