I want Windows 7 to sort my files alphabetically, and I mean from 0 to z!

I want Windows 7 to sort my files alphabetically, and I mean alphanumerically, from 0 to z, in ASCII order.

Windows 7 acts way too smart sorting files by names to my taste. On more ancient versions of Windows (e.g. Windows 2000) the sorting order would be something like this:

  • Ie4_01
  • Ie4_128
  • Ie401sp2
  • Ie5
  • Ie501sp2
  • Ie6

On Windows Vista, XP, Server 2003, or 7, however, you would get this order:

  • Ie4_01
  • Ie4_128
  • Ie5
  • Ie6
  • Ie401sp2
  • Ie501sp2

As you can see, the newer versions don’t stick to sorting, they try to interpret file names, deciding for you that Ie401sp2 is a number that should come after Ie5! This is very tedious when you try to keep your filenames organized, especially when you use alphanumeric prefixes to do so.

Luckily, a Microsoft web article gives a solution.

Open your Windows registry.

Navigate to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\Currentversion\Policies\Explorer

Add a new DWORD with  value: “NoStrCmpLogical”

Set it to 1.

That’s it. Now Windows 7 sorts your files as it should, without fancy sub-algorithms, from 0 to z.