Windows 7: File Sorting Problem

Ive just discovered a new problem. In Win XP All my Movie file clips were sorted by Name ie: Dandy, Dandy (1), Dandy (2). Now this dang Win 7 is sorting them Dandy (1), Dandy (2), Dandy. NOW the first clip is Last. How the heck could MS change sorting after years the first way. AHHHH!

Well, simple solution is to add a 0 to the first one...

Other than that, I believe it has always been this way...

~Lordbob

My experience has been that XP sorted files incorrectly:

file1
file10
file11
file2
file3
file4
file5
file6
file7
file8
file9

Windows Vista and Windows 7 has fixed that, and now file sort properly, because it now also recognizes number in filenames as numbers, not just another character in the ASCII chart:

file1
file2
file3
file4
file5
file6
file7
file8
file9
file10
file11

AFAIK there is simply a bug in Windows 7 sorting file names, and I'm astonished that it hasn't been brought to light before now. Here's a list of files in Windows 7;

C:\windowsbug\00000000.txt
C:\windowsbug\1.txt
C:\windowsbug\1B.txt
C:\windowsbug\2222222C.txt
C:\windowsbug\3333333A.txt
C:\windowsbug\5555555A.txt
C:\windowsbug\7777777B.txt
C:\windowsbug\11111111.txt
C:\windowsbug\22222222.txt
C:\windowsbug\33333333.txt
C:\windowsbug\44444444.txt
C:\windowsbug\66666666.txt
C:\windowsbug\00100000000.txt
C:\windowsbug\100000000.txt

Is there anyone who believes this is a correct or acceptable sort order? I can certify that I've worked on dozens of different systems over the past 50 years and never saw anything like this.

That is not a bug in Windows 7. The order is the same in Windows XP also.



EDIT: I'm not in my 7 machine right now. Will have to check it in the evening

Just did a test and you can see mine sorts perfectly...

In the heat of the moment I certainly did not make myself clear. It's not a bug, it's wrong in Windows 7, Vista and XP *by design*. Microsoft feels they wanted to try to make the sort intelligent, and everyone in the computer field feels they're dead wrong. There were some "not so trivial" registry changes one could make in prior releases to correct this, but I haven't seen anything so definitive in Windows 7 for correcting this design error. I have thousands of files with names similar to the ones I listed, and I simply can't find my files anymore since the order is so jumbled. More importantly, anyone who feels Windows is doing this correctly please examine my list of files above. Microsoft simply did not consider the horrendous ramifications of their sort - I repeat my question, does ANYONE feel the sorted list above is acceptable? Let me also note that there's not a single other computer system that would sort files in this manner - so is Microsoft saying they're right and every other operating system since the beginning of time is wrong? It simply boggles the mind that Microsoft would do this - and not provide an easy or (at least) properly documented way to undo this.
Renaming my files is not an option; software and scripts logically relate the files using the current naming conventions.

In case you didn't notice, everyone else's files are sorted correctly.... Therefore you calling this deliberate is false.

~Lordbob

I think a very simple solution is, just rename your file with same long character.
eg : file01, file02, file03 .. file99 or file0001, file0002, ... file9999
that's what I do ...

The is noting wrong with the way Windows 7 is sorting the files. Allow me to explain, and perhaps you can stop making claims that are untrue. First, I want you to examine the following screenshot:



I recreated the files you are using to make your claim, and this is what I've discovered:

Windows Explorer will attempt to sort filenames using correct alphabetical sorting, and also attempts to extrapolate numbers in the file names. In other words, it uses correct Alpha/Numeric sorting. If you look closely at your filenames as displayed in Windows Explorer, you will see that they are sorted in numerical order.

However, if you look at the same listing of files within the command prompt (sorted by name), then the listing is different. That is because the command line, and indeed older operating systems, don't correctly sort alphanumerically, they sort using the ASCII codes of the characters in the filenames. In ASCII, the numbers "0 - 9" are represented using the codes 48 - 57, while "a - z" is represented using 97 - 122, and "A - Z" are 65 - 90. This is why in the command line sort (using your example filenames) the file "22222222.txt" is listed before "222222C.txt".

I believe the sorting mechanisms of the Windows Explorer GUI are correct, as it distinguishes correctly between letters and numbers.