08/21/2003 Entry: "Sorting out Windows XP"
Posted by Maynard @ 09:42 AM MST

Sorting out Windows XP

Which comes first - 2 or 10? 2, if you're sorting numerically. But if you're sorting alphabetically, 10 comes first, because of the way Windows sorts things (like filenames).

Or more specifically, how Windows used to sort things.

Windows used to sort a set of files like this: file1.txt file10.txt file2.txt. In Windows XP they are sorted file1.txt file2.txt file10.txt. This is a somewhat discomforting surprise if you haven't run across it yet, but there is a fix, if you like the old style (for whatever reason, like you have to support a legacy program that expects a particular sorting).

In the registry, find the key HKEY_LOCAL_ MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\ CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer. Then find or create a DWORD value named NoStrCmpLogical. Set its value to 1. Props to ZDNet and Neil Rubenking for the heads-up, even it it is a post-dated article.

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