Saturday, December 20, 2008

Force Windows XP Explorer to Sort By Name

I am an old fashioned Windows user, I don't like current Windows XP Windows Explorer sorting method, which it can "remember" your settings for each folder. Instinctly I think it will waste disk space. I always missed the old Windows sorting method that is always sort files by file name, only when I tell it to sort by date, it will sort by date, but once I close it and reopen it, I hope it still sort by name instead of sort by date. And I once and always use the "detail" view of Windows Explorer.

This works perfectly before when I choose to "Not remember settings for each folder". But one day, for some unknown reason, it just can not work. Everytime I open Windows Explorer, it always sort files by date, as I did not choose "remember" settings, it will sort by date for EVERY single folder. This is really annoying and frustrating. I tried many ways to solve this problem, I sort the folders by name, then close Windows Explorer, it has no effect, next time when I open it, it still sort by date. I even tried somebody's suggestion, that is to click Ctrl plus the close button on top right corner, still same, no effect. I tried to change the "remember" setting back and forward, hope it can remember to sort by file name, well, still same, once I enable it to "remember", it remember to sort by file name, but once I change it back to "not remember", it remember to sort by date!

I tried to think what I might do before, and I noticed everytime I open Windows Explorer, it will firstly go to the page of "My Computer" which will list all my hard disks, in this view, there is no sorting method above like other folders' detail view does. But, you still can click the above column head to sort it, I tried to click all the column headers one by one, and finally go back to sort by type, then close Windows Explorer. Guess what? Next time I open it, everything works as I wish! My computer view show hard disks together as sort by type, My documents view sort files by file name, my D drive, H drive, I drive all sort by file name now.

Seems the "sort by filename" is related to "sort by type" for My Computer view. If you have similiar issue, please try this way, and let me know your result.

8 comments:

Tuan said...

Hi there, it just worked for me. Thanks for saving me from some aggravation.

Anonymous said...

This did the trick for me. Crazy world...
Thanks a lot! :-)

sven said...

woah! finally a solution.tx

Unknown said...

find solution on this link..
we24support-linkedin
we24support-locanto
we24support-markosweb
we24support@1 888 399 9656 | Computer Support

Anonymous said...

Worked for me as well, did not expect the solution to be so easy or weird.

V Tan

Jonathan Doig said...

Doesn't work for me. When I reopen My Computer it's sorted by Type, but when I click elsewhere - my own folder on C:, or My Documents, it's sorted by Modified Date again. Must be that I sorted these folders by Date some time, maybe the last time I visited them. But I doubt it was the last time. I think it's overriding the default - some bug perhaps.

Anonymous said...

It also worked for me! Thank you very much for posting it! This might be the weirdest of Windows XP glitches. Greetings from Argentina.

Buzz Zhang said...

It's an old post of 2008, I am glad it's useful even after 5 years. :)

Search

Google