Windows Vista/7 extremely annoying folder sorting issue [Solved]

[eRe4s3r]

Solution Thanks to Stunherald for posting how to sort this the way I wanted ,)

Hi,

duno if you figured this out, but i was just in same position a the "magic" is in "shif+click on Name column" ... so

- Open folder
- Detailed view
- Click on "Date Modified" column
- Shift+click on "Name" column
- profit ! ^^

Yea ... and sorry for exhuming this post but i found it via google on first page, so i guess its good to have also solution here :p

Well, might as well put it here.. I have a super annoying issue.

So I have a NAS, it has like.. 4tb.. but it's mostly single files on the root level and lots of folders (We are talking 1500 files, and 2000 folders). The way I browsed it is by "last change" date in explorer.. the problem comes when you got more than 30 or so files and folders. Because for some absurd reason, if you sort by change date it ALSO changes the order of the folders vs files like it reverses it (detailed below). I want to get to Folder1 which is the "newest" changed folder.

The problem is this
First click on "Sort by Change Date"

file1 (newest)
file2
file3 (oldest)
Folder1 (newest) (WTF??? Folders start after files)
Folder2
Folder3 (oldest)

or like this
Second click on "Sort by Change Date"

Folder3 (oldest) (WTF??? Why are folders on top now?)
Folder2
Folder1 (newest)
file3 (oldest)
file2
file1 (newest)

Now generally speaking, I always want to get to the latest Folder1, not the latest file1. And as you can see, there is no way to do that.

Does anyone have an idea how to fix this? Is there some way to change how Windows Vista / Windows 7 sort by change date, like sorting folders first, instead of files?

[Aklyon]

Have you looked through all of the folder options screen's options?

[eRe4s3r]

Obviously If I knew a way to sort so that folder1 is on-top, always, I would not be posting it here. Literally no sorting I tried puts folder1 not in the middle, which is a pain in the backside, because with 1500 files, the "middle" is very very far.

[x4000]

I don't know about this specific issue, but there is a tool called FileBoss that I use to do all sorts of things that vanilla windows explorer will not let me. Worth a look perhaps.

[Hearteater]

You have this issue in Windows 7?  Using Windows 7, clicking on the Date Modified column header flips the sort order back and forth, but folders always come before files in either sort order.

[keith.lamothe]

You have this issue in Windows 7?  Using Windows 7, clicking on the Date Modified column header flips the sort order back and forth, but folders always come before files in either sort order.

Not for me (on Win7).  If the sort arrow over Date Modified is pointing up the folders come first, if it's pointing down the files come first.

My workaround suggestion would be to create a new folder named "__StandaloneFiles" or something like that, then cut and paste (not copy and paste, much faster to cut because it's just changing some filesystem pointers instead of moving the physical files) all your "loose" files into that new folder.  But if you're really wanting to see order of modification of both files and folders that wouldn't really do it for you.

Otherwise, yea, there's a time-honored tradition of using an alternate shell in windows, if the builtin one doesn't do what you want

[eRe4s3r]

Well that app x4000 mentioned indeed does sort folders half properly.. but... 50$ ;/ and no unicode support ~.~

As for Hearteater, no that problem is both in Vista and Windows 7 identical, whatever I do, folders always sort like I described when you specify "date created" or "last changed" as sorting rule. And speaking of sorting, this is by far not the only sorting issue in the explorer (Try sorting by date created and wonder why it displays the oldest files instead of a proper run-down of files and folders in their proper change date order)

External shells are always inferior imo, because most if not all applications use the windows API for folder functions, like save or open dialog.

And sadly I can not move the files, they are specific files my application needs to be outside of the folder. Think hashing functions, the hashing result file can't be inside the hashed folder. Same principle.. just even more complicated. In this case the applications I use require it to be so. It has something to do with detecting changes to large folders without having to rescan them over the network constantly, which takes like, 2 days if you'd actually hash all files to see if they changed.

But reading what Hearteater said, there must either be a major communication issue here or we have found a weird windows configuration issue. For me the order displayed is as described. But if for Hearteater it is NOT as described, then I would be very curious why it is different. I didn't change many things with my Windows Vista or Windows 7 (It's 2 pc's.. so I run both OS at the same time, Vista mainly because I have a certain app that I would have to rebuy if I change the OS ,p)

And you know what? The PROPER sorting order which is of course

File1
Folder1
File2
Folder2
File3
Folder3

(or Folder1/File1 ie, reversed sub-order)
Is not even an option in ANY external shell i know off. (Neither is it in FileBoss)

[keith.lamothe]

Hmm, not really what you're looking for I think, but have you tried "right click -> group by -> Date modified"?  Within the groups the folder/file grouping is still used, but it's a step.

[eRe4s3r]

That's even worse because it sorts "Today" "Yesterday" "Last Week" "Last Year" ... and it has even less options than the normal "Detail" browse view.

I wonder if maybe this has something to do with the VIEW method chosen.. mhh .. (No, same sorting issues in all views)

[keith.lamothe]

A bit of googling found three separate q&a sites with threads asking if there's some way to sort with intermingling folders and files, and the answer was always "no, group-by is the closest you can get".

[eRe4s3r]

Yeah, "group by" at least always gets me the first changed folders and files so it is not much worse, I only misunderstood how it worked at first sight.

But I really hate the group by view, especially since file change and folder change date can sometimes mis-match, by as much as a year.

Bah, I have a too complicated setup here I guess... but "group by" saves me nearly a hundred clicks or 30 seconds of scrolling to find new folders, except if you click the sort arrow again, then it sorts not just wrongly, but terribly and confusingly wrongly.

[Hearteater]

Here is a side-by-side screenshot of what I get.

[eRe4s3r]

That's very weird then  My view doesn't work that way and doesn't even LOOK that way. So maybe I changed something after all.. In fact, my Windows 7 explorer looks nearly identical to the Vista explorer.. so clearly I changed something to disable this fancy view.. but what?

[Aklyon]

Well then give us the screenshots, you silly person That would help much.

[eRe4s3r]

No reason to do that, I remembered what this is, it's the library view template for "my documents" that's not how you access a multi TB archive on a networked drive. And it's not the real explorer view. But it's Interesting to know this sorts differently than the default explorer view.

And I can't really take screenshots of my Windows 7 PC.. because it's not where I live. I told you, my setup is complicated. ;P

But that said, I remember that I disabled the "libraries" in Windows 7

Also, I would have no idea how you use this view Hearteater has on an actual drive, and not in the virtual folder that is "my documents"

Hearteater, you would have to browse via explorer to a drive directly, not to my documents. That's a Windows 7 feature that has absolutely nothing to do with the real explorer. Hence where the confusion comes from ;P