My solution is to use a third-party shareware program called "Windows Commander", from: http://www.tucows.com/system/preview/195854.html I have version 5.0 and I see they're up to 5.51 now, so I hope the following still applies. Windows Commander has no knowledge of what the extension description is, so the files get sorted by the raw extension. Also, it doesn't have the wacky way of sorting files by name that Windows Explorer has under XP, a mixture of alpha and numeric, which often makes it hard to find files, e.g. "xy01, xy1, xy02" in Windows Explorer, which in Windows Commander comes out in the order "xy01, xy02, xy1". That, at least for me, is easier. The big liability of Windows Commander is that you can't jump down to a file by typing the first few letters of the name: you have to scroll to it. Other things I still go to Explorer for are dealing with ZIP files and creating shortcuts. Both those things are supposed to be possible in Commander, but I haven't figured out how to get the same functionality for them as out of Explorer, though I haven't tried very hard. Another bad thing is the search. If you find multiple files and click on one that turns out to be not the one you wanted, you have to redo the search. The search does come out in a separate window though, unlike in XP Explorer where the search list takes the place of the file list so you can't see the file list any more unless you get out of the search. Oh yeah, and when you rename a file, you have to remember to press "ENTER" or the change doesn't take: that's annoying enough that I sometimes go back to Explorer if I have to rename several files. Windows Commander keeps two windows open side-by-side all the time, which is very handy for moving files around.

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more light-weight but with 'Sort by Extension" (own extension column) functionality is TrackerV3 (www.trackerv3.com)


On Saturday, May 31, 2003 at 12:55 am, Jeff Wilson wrote:
> My solution is to use a third-party shareware program called "Windows Commander",
> from:
>
>http://www.tucows.com/system/preview/195854.html
>
> I have version 5.0 and I see they're up to 5.51 now, so I hope the following still
>applies.
>
> Windows Commander has no knowledge of what the extension description is, so the
>files get sorted by the raw extension. Also, it doesn't have the wacky way of sorting
>files by name that Windows Explorer has under XP, a mixture of alpha and numeric,
>which often makes it hard to find files, e.g. "xy01, xy1, xy02" in Windows Explorer,
>which in Windows Commander comes out in the order "xy01, xy02, xy1". That, at least
>for me, is easier.
>
> The big liability of Windows Commander is that you can't jump down to a file by
>typing the first few letters of the name: you have to scroll to it.
>
> Other things I still go to Explorer for are dealing with ZIP files and creating
>shortcuts. Both those things are supposed to be possible in Commander, but I haven't
>figured out how to get the same functionality for them as out of Explorer, though
>I haven't tried very hard. Another bad thing is the search. If you find multiple
>files and click on one that turns out to be not the one you wanted, you have to redo
>the search. The search does come out in a separate window though, unlike in XP Explorer
>where the search list takes the place of the file list so you can't see the file
>list any more unless you get out of the search.
>
> Oh yeah, and when you rename a file, you have to remember to press "ENTER" or
>the change doesn't take: that's annoying enough that I sometimes go back to Explorer
>if I have to rename several files. Windows Commander keeps two windows open side-by-side
>all the time, which is very handy for moving files around.
>
>
>
>
>
>

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You can also edit the registry to use win2k style sorting. http://www.winguides.com/registry/display.php/1293/ - or - Get the new TweakUI from microsoft's powertoys and in the explorer settings tab remove the check in front of "use intuitive sorting" (dont use it)

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