Windows 7: Arranging folders in a directory?

I recently purchased a new PC with Windows 7 Ultimate 64 bit and am having difficulty displaying files & folders like I did with Windows XP.

Within a folder/directory with XP, I sorted files & subfolders by date modified with all the files at the top and all the folders at the bottom. This made it easy to find the previous days files. No need to go scrolling & searching.

With Windows 7 the subfolders are always at the top & I cannot find a way to sort or group in order to get them all to the bottom.

I tried grouping by Type, but this created 30 different groups within one main folder. For example it split up the jpg, gif, bmp & png images. And some of these groups were not even adjacent to the others.

I tried to Group by “More” and tried various details but could not find anything to give me the grouping I had with XP, which was all subfolders at the bottom. Is this possible to do this with Windows 7?

You will need a third party program to do what you want.

http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/w...1-0910d05a8440

Hello Mike,

In addition, you could click on the Date column (or any column you want to sort by) until the arrow at the top is pointing downwards. This will sort with the files on top, and the folders on bottom. One drawback is that they are also in reverse alphabetical order.

Hope this helps,
Shawn

Brink,

I did try with the Date column pointing down, but my folders still stay at the top.

Then I noticed something "missing" in your picture. Below the "?" in the upper right corner I have "Arrange by: Folder", with a drop down arrow next to it. You don't have this. So I started looking and the Folders in my Libraries have this. But other Folders do not.

If I open Libraries > Documents > My Documents, I have "Arrange by: Folder" and cannot get the folders to the bottom no matter what.

If I open MyName > My Documents, the "Arrange by: Folder" does not appear and I can sort & arrange & have the folders at the bottom. Just like you show.

Both of the My Documents folders appear to have identical content. But opening up via the Libraries does not let me arrange things the way I want. The "Arrange by: Folder" is affecting things. I can change it to "Arrange by: Date Modified", but then it lists all the individual files that were in the folders. It's thousands of files!

I guess a work around is to not use the Libraries, or maybe limit their use.

Thanks for your picture, it lead to a solution.

I should add that whether the folders at the bottom are in alphabetical or reverse alphabetical order depends on which column you use to sort the files. If you click on the "Name" column, then the folders at the bottom will be in reverse alphabetical order, if you click on a "date" column than they will still be alphabetical (within the same date of course, otherwise they will be sorted by date).

Just to be precise, I never place my data in the pre-configured structures such as My Documents, and so I am not sure if their behavior is any different from that of the regular folders.

Mike,

Yeah, it will not work like that in libraries. A library is a reference of the included folders in it to make it easier to view these included folders with them still actually stored at different locations and not in the library. They are like shortcuts.

You might see if using the arrange by "Name" in libraries may help.

Arranging by Name in the Libraries does not change the folder location. At least I now know why, and what does & does not work.

Thanks again.

Your My Documents library doesn't look like this when you click on arrange by Name instead of arrange by Folder?

When I arrange by Name it looks your picture on the left, all files & no folders.