Organising Photos in Windows 7

I have been getting never ending headaches trying to organize photos in windows 7.
With XP or Vista I could simply drag the thumbnails around to the order I want in the folder , then select all , then mass rename and that order would remain - even after closing and reopening folder.
With Windows 7 , it will just hold the order based on NAME , regardless of where I try and drag the photo. Can I stop 7 doing this. Also , selecting sort "BY DATE" or any other "SORT BY" option is no use to me , I want to sort them randomly based on what they show - hence I don't want windows to do any rearranging until I have sorted and renamed them in the order I want.
If I have say 500 photos , and want to view in a particular order as a slide show , then it is not practical to rename every single photo individually so that windows 7 will display in the order I want ( this would take hours , as opposed to about 10 mins using drag and drop as I did with Vista and XP ). - and while on the subject of ORDER , am I able to organize folders in any area - eg MY DOCUMENTS the way I want , rather than instantly defaulting to alphabetical as WINDOWS 7 seems to do ??

Maybe this can help you out.

There is a no sniff option that prevents windows from rearranging folders.

look HERE

donnie1 said:

I have been getting never ending headaches trying to organize photos in windows 7.
With XP or Vista I could simply drag the thumbnails around to the order I want in the folder , then select all , then mass rename and that order would remain - even after closing and reopening folder.
With Windows 7 , it will just hold the order based on NAME , regardless of where I try and drag the photo. Can I stop 7 doing this. Also , selecting sort "BY DATE" or any other "SORT BY" option is no use to me , I want to sort them randomly based on what they show - hence I don't want windows to do any rearranging until I have sorted and renamed them in the order I want.
If I have say 500 photos , and want to view in a particular order as a slide show , then it is not practical to rename every single photo individually so that windows 7 will display in the order I want ( this would take hours , as opposed to about 10 mins using drag and drop as I did with Vista and XP ). - and while on the subject of ORDER , am I able to organize folders in any area - eg MY DOCUMENTS the way I want , rather than instantly defaulting to alphabetical as WINDOWS 7 seems to do ??

Click to expand...

Have you tried Windows Live Essentials 2011?

You can use the Photo Gallery program to tag your files as you see fit. From there, you can instruct Explorer to sort the folder by Tag (You'll have to right-click, "Sort By", "More...", and select "Tags").

Works for me.

You can also then do a Windows Search for particular tags, and create you slideshow from there.

That's a good alternative. I use it too. However, you should be able to tell foder options what you want. It's the sniff that causes issues.

Zardoc's first tip seems to be what I want - haven't tried it yet though.

I am interested in the "Windows Live Essentials" idea as well - but does tagging mean I have to manually number each photo ( sorry I'm not quite sure what you mean by TAGGING ) - if that is the case , then it is much more time consuming than just dragging around to the order I want and then doing a "Select All" mass "Rename" when I have the desired order ??

Thanks for your suggestions.

This tutorial may help you to be able to sort the image the way you wish:
How to Disable Auto Arrange in Windows 7 Explorer to have Free Sorting

Thanks Imperfect1 , I think the tutorial is the solution Zardoc is referring to , using a registry download to disable auto arrange - not sure why WINDOWS 7 doesn't just have that option in the drop down under SORT BY though.

Still curious about the tagging method referred to by Dzomlija - does tagging involve manually typing a number or name for every file/image or is it some sort of quick mass tagging thing ??

donnie1, Hi.

Tagging is a way to organise your photos, much in the same way as you can id3 tag your mp3's. Think of a song - it has metadata saved in the file that contains non-audio data: the track title, track number, Artist name, album title, genre, year and more.

Tagging your photos is a way to organise: say you have 500 photos, and you want to only see the ones with you in them. You would tag them with your name and any other information you want. Then you could filter your photos. For example all photos taken in 2010. Or all photos taken at Christmas, or all taken indoors. The possibilities are endless.

donnie1 said:

Still curious about the tagging method referred to by Dzomlija - does tagging involve manually typing a number or name for every file/image or is it some sort of quick mass tagging thing ??

Click to expand...

As Dzomlija and Zardoc have said, windows Live Essentials' Photo Gallery is a great tool. You could also use a third party application, for example the excellent Zoner Photo Studio to tag and organise your photos. Zoner also has batch editing which makes bulk renaming/tagging a snap...

donnie1 said:

Still curious about the tagging method referred to by Dzomlija - does tagging involve manually typing a number or name for every file/image or is it some sort of quick mass tagging thing ??

Click to expand...

You can either tag one at a time, or multiple selected files. Tagging (Using Windows Live Essentials Photo Gallery), can be done either by type the tag, or by dragging-and-drop...

Windows Live Essentials Photo Gallery

I'm using Windows Live Essentials Photo Gallery to tag manga pages (3000+).
It works quite effectively.
The face detection can't cope with comic illustrations (leading to some amusing errors).
I'm tagging them, so that I can quickly identify incidents that people are discussing on the forums.

You shouldn't have too many problems tagging your photos.

You can create tags, before you start tagging your collection.
You can then just choose them (from a list) when you are working on your photos.

Remember to make sure your photos aren't set to "Read-only", before you start adding your tags.

When preparing a slide-show, or a lecture, or a sequence for emailing, it is very necessary (essential) to re-arranging photographs (held in a folder in My Pictures) into a personal desired-sequence. In Windows XP this could all be accomplished simply and effectively. It was easy to drag and drop photographs to new positions, add
extra photographs from elsewhere via copy/pasting them into a desired position, or deleting unwanted ones. After renumbering the new sequence, they could be re-arranged numerically with one click via Sort By.
Now with Windows 7 the process is a nightmare, in fact it is a mess! Even after installing 'Disabling Auto-arrange' (Comment above 2-04-2011) which at least allows dragging and dropping thumbnails, but the remaining requirements (adding in extra photographs, deleting others, renumbering the sequence, etc)

Re-arranging, adding, deleting, numbering photographs. Windows 7.

[FONT=&quot] When preparing a slide-show, or a lecture, or a sequence for emailing, it is very necessary (essential) to re-arrange photographs (held in a folder in My Pictures) into a personally desired-sequence. In Windows XP this could be accomplished simply and effectively. It was easy to drag and drop photographs to new positions, add extra photographs from elsewhere via copy/pasting, or deleting unwanted ones. After easily renumbering the new sequence, they could be re-arranged numerically with one click via 'Sort By'.
Now with Windows 7 the process has become an unworkable nightmare! Even after installing 'Disabling Auto-arrange' (Comment above 2-04-2011) which at least allows dragging and dropping thumbnails, the remaining requirements just don't work effectively. It's frustrating, maddening, and infuriating!
What were the Microsoft programmers thinking. Why foul up something that worked perfectly well in XP? (Obviously the programmers weren't thinking at all!).
Judging by the hits the 'Disable Auto-arrange' site has received there are millions of others that are also upset by Windows 7 inefficiencies at handling photographs. Why isn't Microsoft taking note! Probably they don't care; happens when a company holds a monopoly!
My reason for writing this comment is to report that, after months of struggling, I have finally given up on Windows 7. I am dumping it (at great financial cost to myself) and returning to XP.
Please, someone with connections to Microsoft, pass on my comments and let them know that they have made a %#@*$# mess.
(I would have thought that a patch or some update to correct the situation would have been offered by now. Either Microsoft is not taking note - or they don't care).
[/FONT]

Deep End

I think in your frustration you maybe over reacting.

If you want to manipulate large collections of photos get Irfanview. Read about it here.

IrfanView - Official Homepage - one of the most popular viewers worldwide

Thanks for your prompt reply. Appreciated.

You guys have obviously never worked extensively with photographs, nor prepared lectures, and have clearly forgotten just how simple and efficient XP was.
Yes, I do have ErfanView; have been using it for years. Using it under the Thumbnail tab I can drag and drop, but renumbering photographs is cumbersome to say the least. Under the Open tab it simply repeats all the idiosyncrasies of Window 7. Copying and pasting from elsewhere doesn't work properly under either tab.
I have also tried other Photographic viewers, such as Breeze Browser, FastStone, Windows photo gallery, etc, etc, but all have serious short-comings.

Browse the Internet if you want to see how many photographers are frustrated and annoyed by the short comings of Windows 7. (There were 5 million hits in the one site I used for 'Disabling Auto-arrange'! I would have expected Microsoft to be embarrassed by the clamour).
When something works splendidly well in one program it is just plain dumb to alter it in the successor. Doesn't make any sense at all.

I really regret wasting so much money on Windows 7. I have now dumped it (thank heavens) and re-installed XP. What a relief!

Keep well
Nielen