Windows 7: Why can't I drag files around inside a folder?

I have a new laptop with Windows 7 HP x64. I wonder why I can't drag files around inside a folder - it is very useful to be able to move files around and then rename them, so changing the order of the files there. On my other PC as I drag the files I get a vertical black line and the file then stays where I put it. On the laptop, they won't move from their alphabetical/numerical order.



Have Googled this and see that many seem to fix this with the Esc key - doesn't work for me. Dragging and dropping is enabled in the start menu customisations. My UAC is off (turning it on doesn't help) and I have tried toggling click-lock on the mouse. All in vain.

Anyone have any ideas?

Thanks,

Martin

Hello Martin,

Disabling auto arrange using the tutorial below will allow you to be able to afterwards.

Windows Explorer Auto Arrange - Disable

Hope this helps,
Shawn

1.00am, must go to bed: will try tomorrow. Many thanks for the quick reply! Will post back...

Martin

PS. Only took a minute .. yes, that works. Many thanks! Love Windows 7 but can't understand sometimes why useful features from XP like this have been ditched..

You're most welcome Martin. I'm glad that will work for you.

Well, while the solution works, it also mixes up every carefully-placed icon on your desktop into one huge mass of icons, so beware of using this tool if you don't want to spend the next half hour sorting everything back into place. Also, while it allows for dragging and dropping within a file, unlike Windows XP, it just leaves a space - doesn't bother moving the files together to rectify that or anything. I am beginning to hate Windows 7. Why is something like sorting files within folders made so complicated, when it was perfectly easy to do in XP? And why can we not just choose, on a file by file basis, whether to sort alphabetically or otherwise. We can already decide what an icon or file looks like. Well, forget the aesthetics - we want something that works!

There are a number of freeware tools out there which remember your desktop icon arrangement (over multiple screens if necessary) and will restore the icons to your preferred positioning at one mouse click.

Can't say exactly which, as they are on my PC in the UK and I am abroad for a few months, but Googling will find one - I think the one I use is called IconRestore

M