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Funny alphabetation in Windows explorer



 
 
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  #11 (permalink)  
Old October 2nd 09, 04:42 PM posted to microsoft.public.windows.vista.file_management
chasgl
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 45
Default Funny alphabetation in Windows explorer

Gosh I can tell my first post was hard to understand. I was COUNTING on the
space being a character. I expected ALL the 2009space folders to be before
the 2009dash folders. That is why I consistently named the ones I wanted
to separate with a space and the others with a dash . To see if I had
made some mistake in that I tried Agent Ransack. Agent Ransack worked, it put
the folders 2009space all to together and the 2009dash together. You are
probably right there is not way to fix Windows behavior. But you are wrong
Windows behavior is broken.


"Ken Blake, MVP" wrote:

On Thu, 1 Oct 2009 22:25:01 -0700, chasgl
wrote:

My sweety and I take pictures and store them in folders. I label mine like
this 2009 09 22. My sweety does 2009-09-22. We figured that way they would
appear by date and each of ours would be separate. But the order comes out
like this
2009 08 27 Near Ali and Saida's mostly biking
2009 08 28 Saida and Ali return Arc de Triumph and Tour Effel
a bunch of other folders
2009-01-04. Dhyana-Terri in town.breakfast
2009-02-27. Party-Selim.Saida,Ali.Dan.Matt
.
.
.
2009-09-14 Lemgo
2009-09-23 Austin Property
2009 08 29 Sacre-coer
2009 08 30. Vaux-Le-Vicomte. Ali+M+C

So first are some with 2009space etc
then some 2009- etc
then some 2009space etc

Why would this strange thing happen?



You call it strange, but it's exactly what I would expect. You are
apparently expecting that both the space and hyphen will be ignored,
but that's not the case for either. A space is not the absence of a
character, it's a specific character, and it's the character that's
sorted to the top of the list. The hyphen comes later in the sort
order, before the letters and numbers.


Any way to fix it?




You can't "fix" the Windows behavior, because there's nothing wrong
with it. But you can rename the files to make them more consistent.

--
Ken Blake, Microsoft MVP (Windows Desktop Experience) since 2003
Please Reply to the Newsgroup

  #12 (permalink)  
Old October 2nd 09, 04:45 PM posted to microsoft.public.windows.vista.file_management
chasgl
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 45
Default Funny alphabetation in Windows explorer


That's an excellent suggestion thanks. I had checked that article already.
It doesn't explain the behavior.
Thanks,
Chas
"R. C. White" wrote:

Hi, Chas.

You might find some insight into the sorting algorithm in this KB article:
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
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx/kb/319827

Since I don't have the problem myself, I haven't studied this thoroughly,
but It should answer some questions for you.

RC
--
R. C. White, CPA
San Marcos, TX

Microsoft Windows MVP
Windows Live Mail 2009 (14.0.8089.0726) in Win7 Ultimate x64

  #13 (permalink)  
Old October 2nd 09, 04:45 PM posted to microsoft.public.windows.vista.file_management
chasgl
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 45
Default Funny alphabetation in Windows explorer


That's an excellent suggestion thanks. I had checked that article already.
It doesn't explain the behavior.
Thanks,
Chas
"R. C. White" wrote:

Hi, Chas.

You might find some insight into the sorting algorithm in this KB article:
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
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx/kb/319827

Since I don't have the problem myself, I haven't studied this thoroughly,
but It should answer some questions for you.

RC
--
R. C. White, CPA
San Marcos, TX

Microsoft Windows MVP
Windows Live Mail 2009 (14.0.8089.0726) in Win7 Ultimate x64

  #14 (permalink)  
Old October 2nd 09, 05:21 PM posted to microsoft.public.windows.vista.file_management
NetLink_Blue
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 80
Default Funny alphabetation in Windows explorer

chasgl wrote:
Gosh I can tell my first post was hard to understand. I was COUNTING on the
space being a character. I expected ALL the 2009space folders to be before
the 2009dash folders. That is why I consistently named the ones I wanted
to separate with a space and the others with a dash . To see if I had
made some mistake in that I tried Agent Ransack. Agent Ransack worked, it put
the folders 2009space all to together and the 2009dash together. You are
probably right there is not way to fix Windows behavior. But you are wrong
Windows behavior is broken.



I agree with you, chasgl. Windows behavior is broken. And it's still
broken under Windows-7 (32-bit). I just created/named various folders
similar to your convention. As a test. They do not sort in a logical
manner.

There is probably a way to fool Windows to be consistent. I will leave
that up to you to try and discover. Good luck.

Net_blue



"Ken Blake, MVP" wrote:

[snip]
You can't "fix" the Windows behavior, because there's nothing wrong
with it. But you can rename the files to make them more consistent.

--
Ken Blake, Microsoft MVP (Windows Desktop Experience) since 2003
Please Reply to the Newsgroup


  #15 (permalink)  
Old October 2nd 09, 05:21 PM posted to microsoft.public.windows.vista.file_management
NetLink_Blue
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 80
Default Funny alphabetation in Windows explorer

chasgl wrote:
Gosh I can tell my first post was hard to understand. I was COUNTING on the
space being a character. I expected ALL the 2009space folders to be before
the 2009dash folders. That is why I consistently named the ones I wanted
to separate with a space and the others with a dash . To see if I had
made some mistake in that I tried Agent Ransack. Agent Ransack worked, it put
the folders 2009space all to together and the 2009dash together. You are
probably right there is not way to fix Windows behavior. But you are wrong
Windows behavior is broken.



I agree with you, chasgl. Windows behavior is broken. And it's still
broken under Windows-7 (32-bit). I just created/named various folders
similar to your convention. As a test. They do not sort in a logical
manner.

There is probably a way to fool Windows to be consistent. I will leave
that up to you to try and discover. Good luck.

Net_blue



"Ken Blake, MVP" wrote:

[snip]
You can't "fix" the Windows behavior, because there's nothing wrong
with it. But you can rename the files to make them more consistent.

--
Ken Blake, Microsoft MVP (Windows Desktop Experience) since 2003
Please Reply to the Newsgroup


  #16 (permalink)  
Old October 2nd 09, 06:10 PM posted to microsoft.public.windows.vista.file_management
chasgl
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 45
Default Funny alphabetation in Windows explorer


On the other hand. Changing the setting to the other sort behavior does fix
this problem in Vista. So I'll do without numerical sorting since it doesn't
work and use the old style which does.
Thanks,
chas
"R. C. White" wrote:

Hi, Chas.

You might find some insight into the sorting algorithm in this KB article:
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
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx/kb/319827

Since I don't have the problem myself, I haven't studied this thoroughly,
but It should answer some questions for you.

RC
--
R. C. White, CPA
San Marcos, TX

Microsoft Windows MVP
Windows Live Mail 2009 (14.0.8089.0726) in Win7 Ultimate x64

"chasgl" wrote in message
...
Since the space is the lowest value we were counting on it ALWAYS being
sorted first. What is actually happening is that it is SOMETIMES being
sorted first. I must have been unclear with my post. The list starts out
with the spaces first then it puts the dashes in the list and the spaces
last.
It certainly matches the definition of strange. If you are right that
spaces
should always be first the it also matches the definition of broken.
Thanks for trying to help.
Chas

"Richard G. Harper" wrote:

That strange thing would happen because dashes, spaces and other
punctuation
marks in file or folder names are alphabetized as well as letters and
numbers. If you check a chart of character codes you'll find that a
blank
space is the lowest possible character code and therefore will always be
sorted to the top of a list. This has been the way it has always worked
in
Windows. It can't be "fixed" because it's not "broken".

"chasgl" wrote in message
...
My sweety and I take pictures and store them in folders. I label mine
like
this 2009 09 22. My sweety does 2009-09-22. We figured that way they
would
appear by date and each of ours would be separate. But the order comes
out
like this
2009 08 27 Near Ali and Saida's mostly biking
2009 08 28 Saida and Ali return Arc de Triumph and Tour Effel
a bunch of other folders
2009-01-04. Dhyana-Terri in town.breakfast
2009-02-27. Party-Selim.Saida,Ali.Dan.Matt
.
.
.
2009-09-14 Lemgo
2009-09-23 Austin Property
2009 08 29 Sacre-coer
2009 08 30. Vaux-Le-Vicomte. Ali+M+C

So first are some with 2009space etc
then some 2009- etc
then some 2009space etc

Why would this strange thing happen? Any way to fix it?
Thanks,
Chas



  #17 (permalink)  
Old October 2nd 09, 06:10 PM posted to microsoft.public.windows.vista.file_management
chasgl
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 45
Default Funny alphabetation in Windows explorer



On the other hand. Changing the setting to the other sort behavior does fix
this problem in Vista. So I'll do without numerical sorting since it doesn't
work and use the old style which does.
Thanks,
chas
"R. C. White" wrote:

Hi, Chas.

You might find some insight into the sorting algorithm in this KB article:
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
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx/kb/319827

Since I don't have the problem myself, I haven't studied this thoroughly,
but It should answer some questions for you.

RC
--
R. C. White, CPA
San Marcos, TX

Microsoft Windows MVP
Windows Live Mail 2009 (14.0.8089.0726) in Win7 Ultimate x64

"chasgl" wrote in message
...
Since the space is the lowest value we were counting on it ALWAYS being
sorted first. What is actually happening is that it is SOMETIMES being
sorted first. I must have been unclear with my post. The list starts out
with the spaces first then it puts the dashes in the list and the spaces
last.
It certainly matches the definition of strange. If you are right that
spaces
should always be first the it also matches the definition of broken.
Thanks for trying to help.
Chas

"Richard G. Harper" wrote:

That strange thing would happen because dashes, spaces and other
punctuation
marks in file or folder names are alphabetized as well as letters and
numbers. If you check a chart of character codes you'll find that a
blank
space is the lowest possible character code and therefore will always be
sorted to the top of a list. This has been the way it has always worked
in
Windows. It can't be "fixed" because it's not "broken".

"chasgl" wrote in message
...
My sweety and I take pictures and store them in folders. I label mine
like
this 2009 09 22. My sweety does 2009-09-22. We figured that way they
would
appear by date and each of ours would be separate. But the order comes
out
like this
2009 08 27 Near Ali and Saida's mostly biking
2009 08 28 Saida and Ali return Arc de Triumph and Tour Effel
a bunch of other folders
2009-01-04. Dhyana-Terri in town.breakfast
2009-02-27. Party-Selim.Saida,Ali.Dan.Matt
.
.
.
2009-09-14 Lemgo
2009-09-23 Austin Property
2009 08 29 Sacre-coer
2009 08 30. Vaux-Le-Vicomte. Ali+M+C

So first are some with 2009space etc
then some 2009- etc
then some 2009space etc

Why would this strange thing happen? Any way to fix it?
Thanks,
Chas



  #18 (permalink)  
Old October 5th 09, 09:34 AM posted to microsoft.public.windows.vista.file_management
Tae Song
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 593
Default Funny alphabetation in Windows explorer


"chasgl" wrote in message ...

My sweety and I take pictures and store them in folders. I label mine like
this 2009 09 22. My sweety does 2009-09-22. We figured that way they would
appear by date and each of ours would be separate. But the order comes out
like this
2009 08 27 Near Ali and Saida's mostly biking
2009 08 28 Saida and Ali return Arc de Triumph and Tour Effel
a bunch of other folders
2009-01-04. Dhyana-Terri in town.breakfast
2009-02-27. Party-Selim.Saida,Ali.Dan.Matt
.
.
.
2009-09-14 Lemgo
2009-09-23 Austin Property
2009 08 29 Sacre-coer
2009 08 30. Vaux-Le-Vicomte. Ali+M+C

So first are some with 2009space etc
then some 2009- etc
then some 2009space etc

Why would this strange thing happen? Any way to fix it?
Thanks,
Chas




It maybe caused by support for 8dot3 naming convention.

8dot3 Name as the appear in Explorer
10/05/2009 04:51 AM DIR 200908~3 2009 08 27 Near Ali and Saida's mostly biking
10/05/2009 04:51 AM DIR 200908~4 2009 08 28 Saida and Ali return Arc de Triumph and Tour Effel
10/05/2009 04:51 AM DIR 20E603~1 2009 08 29 Sacre-coer
10/05/2009 04:51 AM DIR 200908~1.ALI 2009 08 30. Vaux-Le-Vicomte. Ali+M+C
10/05/2009 04:51 AM DIR 2009-0~1.BRE 2009-01-04. Dhyana-Terri in town.breakfast
10/05/2009 04:51 AM DIR 2009-0~1.MAT 2009-02-27. Party-Selim.Saida,Ali.Dan.Matt
10/05/2009 04:51 AM DIR 2009-0~4 2009-09-14 Lemgo
10/05/2009 04:51 AM DIR 20BB6C~1 2009-09-23 Austin Property

8dot3 naming convention goes back to the days of DOS. 8 letters (filename) dot (separator) 3 letters (file extension). It's there to support old programs that still use the 8dot3 naming convention to find files.

For whatever reason Explorer maybe using the 8dot3 naming convention to sort the directories.


You can turn it off.

How to Disable the 8.3 Name Creation on NTFS Partitions
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/121007

1. Start Regedt32.exe and locate the following registry key:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Contro l\FileSystem
2. Select the NtfsDisable8dot3NameCreation entry.

NOTE: By default, the value for this entry is set to 0.
3. On the Edit menu, click DWORD. Type a value of 1 in the Data field.
4. Click OK and then quit Regedt32.
5. Quit Windows NT and turn off your computer.
6. Restart your computer and Windows NT.

As the KB notes, this works only for file or directory created after the registry change and reboot.
  #19 (permalink)  
Old October 5th 09, 08:39 PM posted to microsoft.public.windows.vista.file_management
chasgl
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 45
Default Funny alphabetation in Windows explorer


Fascinating suggestion. I'm not sure why explorer would use the 8.3 or why
switching to alpha sort instead of numerical sort would affect the outcome.
But the symptoms sure match.
Thanks,
Chas
"Tae Song" wrote:


"chasgl" wrote in message
...
My sweety and I take pictures and store them in folders. I label mine

like
this 2009 09 22. My sweety does 2009-09-22. We figured that way they

would
appear by date and each of ours would be separate. But the order comes

out
like this
2009 08 27 Near Ali and Saida's mostly biking
2009 08 28 Saida and Ali return Arc de Triumph and Tour Effel
a bunch of other folders
2009-01-04. Dhyana-Terri in town.breakfast
2009-02-27. Party-Selim.Saida,Ali.Dan.Matt
.
.
.
2009-09-14 Lemgo
2009-09-23 Austin Property
2009 08 29 Sacre-coer
2009 08 30. Vaux-Le-Vicomte. Ali+M+C

So first are some with 2009space etc
then some 2009- etc
then some 2009space etc

Why would this strange thing happen? Any way to fix it?
Thanks,
Chas



It maybe caused by support for 8dot3 naming convention.

8dot3
Name as the appear in Explorer
10/05/2009 04:51 AM DIR 200908~3 2009 08 27 Near Ali
and Saida's mostly biking
10/05/2009 04:51 AM DIR 200908~4 2009 08 28 Saida and
Ali return Arc de Triumph and Tour Effel
10/05/2009 04:51 AM DIR 20E603~1 2009 08 29 Sacre-coer
10/05/2009 04:51 AM DIR 200908~1.ALI 2009 08 30.
Vaux-Le-Vicomte. Ali+M+C
10/05/2009 04:51 AM DIR 2009-0~1.BRE 2009-01-04.
Dhyana-Terri in town.breakfast
10/05/2009 04:51 AM DIR 2009-0~1.MAT 2009-02-27.
Party-Selim.Saida,Ali.Dan.Matt
10/05/2009 04:51 AM DIR 2009-0~4 2009-09-14 Lemgo
10/05/2009 04:51 AM DIR 20BB6C~1 2009-09-23 Austin
Property

8dot3 naming convention goes back to the days of DOS. 8 letters
(filename) dot (separator) 3 letters (file extension). It's there to
support old programs that still use the 8dot3 naming convention to find
files.

For whatever reason Explorer maybe using the 8dot3 naming convention to
sort the directories.


You can turn it off.

How to Disable the 8.3 Name Creation on NTFS Partitions
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/121007

1. Start Regedt32.exe and locate the following registry key:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Contro l\FileSystem
2. Select the NtfsDisable8dot3NameCreation entry.

NOTE: By default, the value for this entry is set to 0.
3. On the Edit menu, click DWORD. Type a value of 1 in the Data field.
4. Click OK and then quit Regedt32.
5. Quit Windows NT and turn off your computer.
6. Restart your computer and Windows NT.

As the KB notes, this works only for file or directory created after the
registry change and reboot.

  #20 (permalink)  
Old October 5th 09, 08:39 PM posted to microsoft.public.windows.vista.file_management
chasgl
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 45
Default Funny alphabetation in Windows explorer


Fascinating suggestion. I'm not sure why explorer would use the 8.3 or why
switching to alpha sort instead of numerical sort would affect the outcome.
But the symptoms sure match.
Thanks,
Chas
"Tae Song" wrote:


"chasgl" wrote in message
...
My sweety and I take pictures and store them in folders. I label mine

like
this 2009 09 22. My sweety does 2009-09-22. We figured that way they

would
appear by date and each of ours would be separate. But the order comes

out
like this
2009 08 27 Near Ali and Saida's mostly biking
2009 08 28 Saida and Ali return Arc de Triumph and Tour Effel
a bunch of other folders
2009-01-04. Dhyana-Terri in town.breakfast
2009-02-27. Party-Selim.Saida,Ali.Dan.Matt
.
.
.
2009-09-14 Lemgo
2009-09-23 Austin Property
2009 08 29 Sacre-coer
2009 08 30. Vaux-Le-Vicomte. Ali+M+C

So first are some with 2009space etc
then some 2009- etc
then some 2009space etc

Why would this strange thing happen? Any way to fix it?
Thanks,
Chas



It maybe caused by support for 8dot3 naming convention.

8dot3
Name as the appear in Explorer
10/05/2009 04:51 AM DIR 200908~3 2009 08 27 Near Ali
and Saida's mostly biking
10/05/2009 04:51 AM DIR 200908~4 2009 08 28 Saida and
Ali return Arc de Triumph and Tour Effel
10/05/2009 04:51 AM DIR 20E603~1 2009 08 29 Sacre-coer
10/05/2009 04:51 AM DIR 200908~1.ALI 2009 08 30.
Vaux-Le-Vicomte. Ali+M+C
10/05/2009 04:51 AM DIR 2009-0~1.BRE 2009-01-04.
Dhyana-Terri in town.breakfast
10/05/2009 04:51 AM DIR 2009-0~1.MAT 2009-02-27.
Party-Selim.Saida,Ali.Dan.Matt
10/05/2009 04:51 AM DIR 2009-0~4 2009-09-14 Lemgo
10/05/2009 04:51 AM DIR 20BB6C~1 2009-09-23 Austin
Property

8dot3 naming convention goes back to the days of DOS. 8 letters
(filename) dot (separator) 3 letters (file extension). It's there to
support old programs that still use the 8dot3 naming convention to find
files.

For whatever reason Explorer maybe using the 8dot3 naming convention to
sort the directories.


You can turn it off.

How to Disable the 8.3 Name Creation on NTFS Partitions
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/121007

1. Start Regedt32.exe and locate the following registry key:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Contro l\FileSystem
2. Select the NtfsDisable8dot3NameCreation entry.

NOTE: By default, the value for this entry is set to 0.
3. On the Edit menu, click DWORD. Type a value of 1 in the Data field.
4. Click OK and then quit Regedt32.
5. Quit Windows NT and turn off your computer.
6. Restart your computer and Windows NT.

As the KB notes, this works only for file or directory created after the
registry change and reboot.

 




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