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

windows 8windows-explorer

Is there a way to sort 'like a library' in windows explorer (omit 'The ', 'A ' and 'An ' from file names for the purpose of sorting)? i.e. current behavior (sorted as Windows would normally do with sort by name):

A File 4.ext
A File 2.ext
File 3.ext
File 7.ext
The File 1.ext
The File 5.ext
The File 6.ext
The File 8.ext
The File 9.ext

and I want:

The File 1.ext
A File 2.ext
File 3.ext
A File 4.ext
The File 5.ext
The File 6.ext
File 7.ext
The File 8.ext
The File 9.ext

I do not want to rename my files like this (for aesthetic reasons):

File 1, The.ext
File 2, A.ext
File 3.ext
File 4, A.ext
File 5, The.ext
File 6, The.ext
File 7.ext
File 8, The.ext
File 9, The.ext

If there is no way to do this in Windows Explorer is there a third party explorer that does this and doesn't look like it came straight out of XP/9x?

Best Answer

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.

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