There is a default topic view setting in the control panel.
Control Panel » Forum Settings>> details.
Per forum.
So you need to do every forum ,I don't recall a global setting.
But anyway check it for the forum in question.
Also using the "from all dates" puts more overhead on the server due to more posts to process.
Then the user can change it only temporally while viewing that forum. Meaning once they goto another forum and go back to the original forum it should goto the default setting again.
