They remember the state of the folder in which they reside. If it's column view or list or icon... if you don't touch the view of the folder, they aren't created.<br><br>
<blockquote><font size=1>In reply to:</font><hr><p>If it's column view<p><hr></blockquote><p>Unfortunately, .DS_Store gets Alzheimer's sometimes. In every released version of OS X from the Public Beta through all 5 revisions, the "open every window in column view" preference sometimes doesn't stick. <br><br>