OPEN OLD DOCUMENT SEARCH: how to preserve Column widths

O.S. UBUNTU 12.04 - when I want to open a document -click FILE>OPEN to see DETAILS of HDDs in LH “NAME” column.
Need to drag this column wider every time I do this. How can I preserve the width with no dragging?

Point two: The “Recent Documents” are not always available - “doesn’t exist” banner

Sincerely,
Berry