Hiding finder preview panel... forever

I'm not sure why but quite recently Finder likes to show me the Preview panel on new Finder windows.

I've tried every method I could find:

• Hiding the preview. Close the finder and open a new window. Will show the same preview again.
• Go to /Users/$username$/Library/Preferences/com.apple.finder.plist and edit the ShowPreviewPane setting it to NO. This will magically revert to YES after I relaunch the Finder.

I'm out of ideas. What could I do?

Finder->View Menu->Hide Preview.

I tried deleting library/preferences/com.apple.finder.plist but it had no effect. Neither did changing "Hide Preview" in Finder's View menu.

But -- drum roll please -- with the finder window open showing the preview pane, I used the key combo shift-command-P and the pane disappeared from the open window, AND FROM ALL NEW FINDER WINDOWS I OPENED!

Persistence pays!

This worked for me:

1. Open Finder and close preview pane,
2. Press ⌘+J (or select in menu: View->Show view options), select needed options and press "Set as default" button.