Windows – Is there a way to fix the sort by name in Windows 10 File Explorer

windowswindows 10windows-explorer

There seems to be a bug in Windows 10 File explorer.

For instance here are four files I created listed how they appear when I have sort by Name ascending selected:

31A.txt
32A.txt
311.txt
321.txt

These are not correctly sorted by name ascending. The proper sort would be:

311.txt
31A.txt
321.txt
32A.txt

This bug appears whenever the filenames start with the same character. In other words, File Explorer will place a file that starts with '1' before one that starts with 'A'.

This only happens in File Explorer and open dialog boxes that I'm aware of. Command line lists the files in the proper order.

Is there a fix for this? Am I off my rocker? Googling is coming up zilch for me. This also seems like a very strange bug, sorting algorithms have been around for ages now.

Best Answer

The fix for this in Windows 7 almost works, but the group policy setting's location changed.

In the start menu, search for "Edit Group Policy" or "gpedit.msc" and press enter.
In the Local Group Policy Editor, navigate to User Configuration / Administrative Templates / Windows Components / File Explorer.
- In Windows 10 this is in File Explorer, whereas Windows 7 apparently called it Windows Explorer.
Double-click Turn off numerical sorting in File Explorer and select Enabled, then click OK.

Related Solutions

Windows – Sort order in Windows Explorer

By default, the newer sort order considers strings in file and folder names as numeric content, not text. Numerals in folder and file names are sorted according to their numeric value.

In the following example, note how the following files, whose names contain numerals, are sorted.

Windows Vista, Windows XP, and Windows Server 2003

5.txt
11.txt
88.txt

In this example, 88 is a numerically higher value than 5. Therefore, the 88.txt is listed after the 5.txt when you sort the folders by name in ascending order.

Source: The sort order for files and folders whose names contain numerals is different in Windows Vista, Windows XP, and Windows Server 2003 than it is in Windows 2000

Windows – sort ‘like a library’ in windows explorer (omit ‘The ‘, ‘A ‘, ‘An’, etc)

This does not appear to be possible using Windows Explorer.

It seems like it used to be possible by creating a column handler shell extension (see http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/bb776831(v=vs.85).aspx) which you could program to sort according to your needs, but that feature was unfortunately deprecated in Windows Vista.

Best Answer

Related Solutions

Windows – Sort order in Windows Explorer

Windows – sort ‘like a library’ in windows explorer (omit ‘The ‘, ‘A ‘, ‘An’, etc)

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