Windows 7: Need help with file arrangement on burned MP3 CD's

At first I burned an audio CD by dragging mp3 files into the writer. Then discovered that the order was not what I wanted, by track number, but was alphabetical by title. Looking at the File arrangement setting I discovered it was indeed set to [artist]-[title]. So I changed it to [track] and then burned another CD. But it ordered them by title again.

Next, I cleared the mp3 files from CD writer and dragged them back again thinking this must be done after setting the file arrangement. But upon burning the CD, it still was alphabetically ordered by title.
I checked the docs and didn't see any reference to File arrangement.




I must be missing something. Please Advise.

Files in any folder viewed "physically" by Windows Explorer will always by default be sequenced alphabetically by external file name. This includes placing MP3 files into a physical folder (e.g. album) on your hard drive, or burning that folder on a CD

This is entirely different than "logically" browsing the music files in that folder using a program like MP3Tag, and examining the internal tag field values.

Obviously both Windows Explorer and MP3Tag allow you to click on any column heading and sort the presentation sequence based on the values in that column, but the "physical" folder itself is going to appear in alphabetical sequence by external file name when you look at it.

So, if you want your tracks to appear (or play) in "track number" sequence (when viewed using Windows Explorer), your external file names must have the track number as a prefix to the song title value in that external file name. Whatever you have as the complete external file name, that will be the value used for the alphabetizing by Windows Explorer's view of things. Same with a media player program, which also examines the contents of your CD folder in alphabetical order by external file name.

Note that you can use MP3Tag to do a rename of the external file names, just as it can manipulate the internal tag field values. In fact if your music files all have tags, and all have track number tag fields filled in correctly, you can have MP3Tag do a mass-rename (of the external file names) to insert that track number as a prefix... if that's what you want to do.

If you burn an actual music CD you can set the track order. If you burn MP3 files it doesn't really matter, your just burning data files. Its the device you play them back on that decides the order. On my PC windows media player plays them by track number. Explorer lists them alphabetically. In my car while it can retrieve the MP3 tag info it plays by song title, alphabetically. When I burn a music CD for my car I add the track number to the beginning of the file name, 01, 02, etc. The songs then play in the correct order. What gets shown on the radio display is the song title from the tag info not the file name. It sucks but the radio/CD player plays alphabetically by folder name, file name and I haven't found any way to change it in the limited settings menu.