How to disable automatic sorting in folders?

[xpclient]

Just this one feature is preventing me from migrating to Windows 7 from XP: automatic sorting. There is no solution. I have been searching for a solution since Vista betas (2005-2006). If I don't find a solution to this, I feel like moving to some Linux distro abandoning 17 years of Windows computing. Anyone have a solution?

Edited June 5, 2012 by xpclient

[tomasz86]

How about using an Explorer replacement where you can choose to automatically sort or not?

[iamtheky]

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/92758-windows-explorer-auto-arrange-disable.html

[vinifera]

there are some reg inserts but in my own experience it messes things even more

its just one of those things you'll gave to bite teeth to and accept it

Edited June 4, 2012 by vinifera

[xpclient]

@iamtheky, there are two issues: Auto sorting in List view or Details view. And Auto Arrange in icon-based views like large icons, medium icons etc. I know how to disable auto arrange - that reg tweak is fairly well known. But I always use List view to minimize the amount of scrolling required as List View accommodates the maximum number of items on screen. The automatic sorting drives me insane. Create a new folder and it jumps to the Ns. Rename something and it jumps. Copy a bunch of files and they get scattered due to the sorting instead of all appearing at the end.I think this is a really horrible behavior of Explorer. Other Explorer alternatives I triedincluding free and commercial ones don't have many Explorer features and shell extension specific features. I don't see how moving to Linux is going to solve my problem either. Linux file managers are more of less the same as Windows third party file managers. I like Explorer except for this abomination which shuffles all my files and it is one of the reasons I haven't moved from XP on my main PC - although I know Windows 7 really well - no problem with "migrating" if this issue is gone.

[UltimateSilence]

How to Disable Auto Arrange in Folders in Windows 7?

I've merged the registry file on that site with my Windows 7 before. The only side-effect that I recall is that the free space of a drive(s), under any view setting, will no longer display. You will have to check manually in Properties.

The registry file on that site also fixes the "show translucent rectangle" bug.

Edited June 5, 2012 by UltimateSilence

[bphlpt]

The link that iamtheky provided seems to work for me in Win7 x64 after a very brief test.. Thanks for that! This has been annoying for me as well. xpclient, I would be very curious what you thought about it, though I very much agree that it would be much nicer to have this more easily selectable as you proposed here - automatic sorting.

Cheers and Regards

Edited June 5, 2012 by bphlpt

[xpclient]

All those reg tweaks simply disable auto arrange, not auto sort in LIST or DETAILS views. I am the "Anon" who figured that out.If you don't want to do reg tweaks, there's also, Folder Options X to do it through a GUI. But no fix for auto sorting. It is not a big deal, you can surely adapt to Windows 7 even with it. But it is the arrogance of Microsoft and refusal to fix issues like these that rages me. Millions told them not to cripple the desktop in Windows 8 and yet they did. Hundreds of users are complaining about forced auto sort and auto arrange, yet they totally ignore it. As I said, I was requesting a simple fix to disable auto sort since the Longhorn betas when they made this change. When XP support ends, I will have to make a hard decision - either live with it on Windows 7 or find a suitable Linux distro replacement. It's a matter of principle for me - I don't like being dictated how to use my computer by a certain company that has turned evil in recent days.

Edited June 5, 2012 by xpclient

[UltimateSilence]

When XP support ends, I will have to make a hard decision - either live with it on Windows 7 or find a suitable Linux distro replacement. It's a matter of principle for me - I don't like being dictated how to use my computer by a certain company that has turned evil in recent days.

Off-topic, I know, but...

I know that I'll still use XP even after support ends. There are plenty of people who still use Windows 98, Windows 2000, etc. I honestly think people overreact at the EoS dates.

And you could look at it from another angle... That company wasn't "evil" when they created Windows XP!

Edited June 5, 2012 by UltimateSilence

[bphlpt]

All those reg tweaks simply disable auto arrange, not auto sort in LIST or DETAILS views

I can't argue with your expertise, but it seems to work for me in a very simple DETAILS view test:

This order is maintained once I have run the Disable_Windows_7_Explorer_Auto_Arrange.bat file even after Explorer is closed and reopened. If I put back the default behavior by running the Enable_Windows_7_Explorer_Auto_Arrange.bat file, the sorted list is enforced.

Maybe you are talking about something else and I am misunderstanding?

Cheers and Regards

[xpclient]

^^ First, I am no expert. But are you referring to the ability to drag to sort items? I am not talking about that. I am talking about the case when a file operation like Rename, paste, extract from ZIP/RAR or create new makes the files sort. Suppose, you rename a file, doesn't it get automatically sorted by name? Or you create a new folder or new document from the "New menu"? I don't want it to get sorted immediately. Or suppose a folder already has many files and you are watching that folder for any new files added to it by some program that writes to it. As soon as the files are copied to that folder while the folder's open, they get sorted and thus lost in the alphabetical sorting. In XP, if I renamed an item, it would stay in place and get sorted when I pressed Refresh or F5. Suppose I paste multiple files into %windir%\system32, they get sorted at once. Because system32 is a massive folder with many files, if the file names of the ones I paste don't begin with the same letter, they get scattered due to the auto-sorting. Here's a Windows 7 Taskforce quirk talking about the issue I mean: http://www.windows7t...e.com/view/3357

In this image, the files 'file1new.txt', 'file2new.txt' and 'file3new.txt' should appear after 'file8.txt' when I paste them. Only after a Refresh, they should get sorted. Otherwise, when I am dealing with huge numbers of files that don't fit in one view without scrolling, these files appear scattered/shuffled. Same problem if I extract some files from ZIP by doing "Extract here". The sorting makes them get all mixed up with files already in the folder. That drives me mad. See what I mean?

Edited June 5, 2012 by xpclient

[bphlpt]

I see now, and you are indeed correct. I told you I only did minimal testing. I naively assumed that since it would let me drag sort where it would not before that everything was good, but as soon as I rename any file, they all got sorted. Would seem to be such a logical and useful fix. Must be why they didn't do it.

Cheers and Regards

[xpclient]

There is no way to disable forced automatic sorting. Can the people who are annoyed and affected by this please vote here on Connect: http://connect.microsoft.com/WindowsServerFeedback/feedback/details/741495/biggest-explorer-annoyance-automatic-sorting-windows-7-server-2008-r2-and-vista so it gets fixed by the Windows shell team?

[vinifera]

that won't happen

and if it does, it will be either in win9 or 10 "re-fixed"

old ones and current ones don't get code rewritten

[MagicAndre1981]

I doubt that this will be ever fixed. A MSFT employee wrote on neowin some years ago, that the feature was gone because MSFT rewrote the Explorer for Windows 7 to implement libraries. And they haven't implemented this feature because of "telemetry" (only some users used it).