The sort order used in Windows XP and Windows Vista is different from the sort order used by Windows 2000. You can configure Windows 2000-style sorting in Windows XP/Vista by altering the NoStrCmpLogical registry value as mentioned in Microsoft Knowledgebase 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.
Fig 1: Sort order in Windows 2000.
Fig 2: Sort order in Windows XP/Vista/Server 2003.
Using the registry fix in this article, you can add the sort order options in the View tab of the Folder Options dialog in Windows XP.
Add "Sort Order" options to Folder Options (View tab)
1. Download sortorder.zip and save to Desktop.
2. Unzip the archive and extract the contents to a folder.
3. Double-click the file sortorder.reg to run it.
Start Windows Explorer, click Tools, Folder Options, click the View tab. You should see the following option:
(To remove the option, run the sortorder-remove.reg file.)
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this does not work for me. it does everything it claims to do except fix the sorting. i made a few files to test this and several other options.
00002.txt 1.txt 3.txt and it sorts in that order only. i have windows 7 and i have tried to add the registry options by hand, buy using the group policy that didn’t work and now this. it probably works but not on windows 7 ultimate