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Sort Order of Windows File Open; Save As Dialogs

by Mad 9 comments Print

Somehow, for whatever reason, Windows decided to display files using the last modified date & time as the sorting order for the common open and save as dialogs.

Why?

Good question.

I have been using Windows since the bad old days of Windows 2.0 (circa 1987) and for the life of me have never had this happen before knowingly or otherwise. For
a period of over a month this really really really annoyed me.

I tried searching but just couldn’t get the right results which showed a solution within the top 4 (yes I am lazy).

Anyways, recently I tried again and found the solution.

If the Ctrl key is pressed when an Explorer window is closed, Windows will save the sort order being used within the closing window and use this to sort the files
when the open and save as dialogs are shown.

Thanks to Susan Daffron’s Windows Explorer Weirdness article for the solution.

I have since found other articles and threads which have the solution (why is it that when you need something you can’t find it, but when you don’t …), but this was
the first one I found and used to solve my frustration.

Speaking of old versions of Windows, I have actually seen, and used for all of 2.5 minutes, a PC running Windows 1.0, and this was in a Pharmacy in Australia,
which had a stack of 10 or so PCs for sale in the middle of the store. Windows 1.0 did not allow for overlapping Windows. I still can’t believe believe it to this day.

9 comments:
1. Michael Cai
26 July 2007 10:35

I had the same problem. After reading Susan Daffron’s article, I tried to fix the headache. Here is what I did. I sorted a directory alphabetically, and held down
the Ctrl key, and then closed the window. I hoped the window would remember the new sorting order and apply next time.

The outcome is totally unexpected. The problem is fixed for Eudora, but not for Microsoft Word. If I use Open, Save, and Save As in Eudora, the directories
and files are alphabetically ordered. However, using the same commands in Microsoft Word, the files will show in an order last modified.

Any suggestions?

2. Martyn Davis
28 July 2007 7:30

Thanks for the feedback Michael.

It is always difficult to determine the sequence of actions from words.

The only suggestion I have is to start Explorer, which can be done from Start – My Computer or Start – Run – C:\, sort it alphabetically ascending, and then
hold the Ctrl key when you press the red X.

I hope this helps, as doing this also resolved the sort order within Word’s open and save as dialogs, which is what was frustrating me.

3. Primož Peterlin
25 September 2007 6:06

I cannot quite subscribe to the observations above. I believe that Explorer saves the preferred way of sorting the files (for a given directory!) regardless of
 whether you hold Ctrl when you quit it. However, on my system (Windows XP SP2, Office 2003), this does not affect the sorting order in Office.

However, our departmental secretary has taught me a trick which works for me. As you may know, there are two ways of changing the sorting order in the
Explorer. One is via the menus (View > Arrange Icons by > Name, Size, Type etc.). The other one is by clicking on the title line (when you select Details) of
the columns “Name”, “Size”, “Type” and “Date modified”. Usually, an upward pointing triangle is displayed near “Name”, indicating sorting by ascending
order on filenames. Clicking it will turn the order to descending, indicated by a downward pointing triangle. If you click another column, files will be sorted
according to that field. Well, to cut this short – this option exists as well in the file selector window which opens by selecting “Open” or “Save As”. Most likely,
you have inadvertly clicked on some field other than “Name” some time ago, and you will find a triangle there. Clicking on “Name” should restore the sorting
order.

4. Martyn Davis
25 September 2007 21:25

Yes Explorer will save the sort order for each folder (forcing myself not to use directory), although I personally turn this off, but this is only for Explorer itself.

Holding the Ctrl key when closing Explorer sets the initial sort order used by the file open and file save as common dialogs.

Anyways, I had a problem, which was the file open and file save as dialogs initially sorted on last modified, which drove me crazy, and the original article
referenced fixed my problem.

5. Tom
26 January 2008 8:35

I had the same problem of ’save as’ dialogs not being sorted alphabetically for the last few weeks in XP Professional. I think it was occuring with only one
folder in all applications in the ’save as’ dialog. I fixed it by going into windows explore, sorting my c: directory (I think using any directory will work)
alphabetically by clicking on the ‘name’ header (as described above by Primoz), then go to the ‘Tools’ drop down menu –> Folder Options –> click on the
‘View’ tab –> click on the ‘Apply to all Folders’ button. It seems to have worked.

Tom

6. Al Haller
5 August 2008 8:21

Bless you Sir, that last Apply All did it!

All my ’save as’ windows are now sorted.

My normal Explorer view was always sorted. It was only the Save As dialogs that were a mess.

Ive been putting up with this for a year trying occasionally to seek an answer.

Thank you most heartily!

al

7. Ger Bosma
30 October 2008 4:31

Thanx a lot, I was really fed up with this persistent & nagging little problem. Everything back to normal now.

Every time I wanted to save a file I was presented with an apparently random filelist, forcing me to manually resort them in order to find the subfolder I was
looking for. But the sorting order reversed back to its former cluttered state every time.

I had hunted down some other tips on the internet, but they were all (useless for this particular problem) registrytips, meant for forcing the normal Explorer
view back to alphabetical, as opposed to the save as window.

8. Sandra Noble
18 April 2009 16:09

Very relieved to find I’m not the only one with this problem.

But, my problem just started a couple of weeks ago. Tried Tom’s fix and still having problem. Perhaps if I restart the computer it will work.

Sandra Noble

9. JG
24 May 2009 19:20

I echo Al Holler’s thanks to Tom above… all that stuff about holding Ctrl when clicking X to close did not change the way files were displayed in Outlook
Express when I tried to attach a file to an email. Only by doing the “Apply to All Folders” did it change elsewhere. (Files were always fine in Windows
Explorer list, which displayed them sorted by name. It was only in other apps that I had a problem where they were displayed in modification date order).
BLESS YOU TOM!
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