Arrange icons by name without numerical order

[dwakeman]

I have discovered that Windows XP lists files by name more
intelligently when the file names contain numbers. I am
assisting a user who accesses a folder with report numbers
and now they appear in true numerical order. As an
example, the following filenames would show up in this
order in Windows 2000:

04-0039ABC.doc
04-10000ABC.doc
04-347ABC.doc
04-34ABC.doc
04-9999ABC.doc

Now they appear this way in Windows XP:

04-34ABC.doc
04-0039ABC.doc
04-347ABC.doc
04-9999ABC.doc
04-10000ABC.doc

Is there a way to turn off this functionality in Windows
XP? I don't anticipate there is but it's an interesting
feature of Windows XP to bring up anyways. I certainly
don't have a problem with this feature and I think it
makes perfect sense the way it's implemented, but the user
I'm supporting looks up specific report numbers and wants
to be able to browse the folder purely alphabetically by
individual characters (or in this case, digits). This
feature makes intuitive sense to me but for others
requires an extra step in the thought process--looking at
the entire number as a whole piece in the filename, not
just individual digits, synonymous with reading in an
integer rather than a character in C++.

 

[Alex Nichol]

I have discovered that Windows XP lists files by name more
intelligently when the file names contain numbers. I

Is there a way to turn off this functionality in Windows
XP?

Yes. Use TweakUI - one of the XP Powertoys from (if you have installed
XP SP1)
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/pro/downloads/powertoys.asp

If you have not installed SP1, the earlier version can be found at
http://download.microsoft.com/download/whistler/Install/2/WXP/EN-US/TweakUiPowertoySetup.exe

Once installed you will find it in Start - All Programs - Powertoys for
Windows XP

In its Explorer page, uncheck the box to 'Use intuitive filename
sorting'