how to sort folders with name format "dd-mm-yy vacation x" inchronological order??

  • Thread starter Thread starter Alex
  • Start date Start date
A

Alex

Hi all,

I have spent the last one hour trying to figure out how windows sorts
files and folders alphabetically and I give up! (win xp home sp3 in
windows explorer window)

What I want to do is the following:
For each holiday I have a folder containing pictures. The folders are
all named in the same format, namely "dd-mm-yy country" WITHOUT the
quotes.
I want windows to sort these folders chronologically and do this
automatically.
Example:
01-01-07 Spain
30-07-07 Greece
01-12-07 France
10-10-08 Egypt
Which is sorted chronologically

When in explorer I select the option to sort files by name, I get
this:
30-07-07 Greece
10-10-08 Egypt
01-12-07 France
01-01-07 Spain
Which is not chronological.

When I let windows sort by "last edited on..." this is not correct
either since I may have edited old files at a later date which will
get a new and more recent timestamp which can be 2 years after I made
them.

Your help is very much appreciated!
 
Alex said:
Hi all,

I have spent the last one hour trying to figure out how windows sorts
files and folders alphabetically and I give up! (win xp home sp3 in
windows explorer window)

What I want to do is the following:
For each holiday I have a folder containing pictures. The folders are
all named in the same format, namely "dd-mm-yy country" WITHOUT the
quotes.
I want windows to sort these folders chronologically and do this
automatically.
Example:
01-01-07 Spain
30-07-07 Greece
01-12-07 France
10-10-08 Egypt
Which is sorted chronologically

When in explorer I select the option to sort files by name, I get
this:
30-07-07 Greece
10-10-08 Egypt
01-12-07 France
01-01-07 Spain
Which is not chronological.

When I let windows sort by "last edited on..." this is not correct
either since I may have edited old files at a later date which will
get a new and more recent timestamp which can be 2 years after I made
them.

Your help is very much appreciated!
Click to expand...
Unfortunately other than sorting by creation date which just don't work
either, the date in the name is part of a string and not really a date
so you can sort. Its a problem with your brain (the human brain) in
that you see it and do the translation but the PC can't.
I do my 10,000 photos in gobs of folders by the YYYY-MM-DD format.

2007 10 01 - Kids Birthday
2007 12 25 - Xmas
2008 01 01 - New Years
2008 05 04 - Another item.

Its the only way I can get them to work right. I've been trying for 4
years. I'm open to ideas, but this works.
 
Alex said:
Hi all,

I have spent the last one hour trying to figure out how windows sorts
files and folders alphabetically and I give up! (win xp home sp3 in
windows explorer window)

What I want to do is the following:
For each holiday I have a folder containing pictures. The folders are
all named in the same format, namely "dd-mm-yy country" WITHOUT the
quotes.
I want windows to sort these folders chronologically and do this
automatically.
Example:
01-01-07 Spain
30-07-07 Greece
01-12-07 France
10-10-08 Egypt
Which is sorted chronologically

When in explorer I select the option to sort files by name, I get
this:
30-07-07 Greece
10-10-08 Egypt
01-12-07 France
01-01-07 Spain
Which is not chronological.

When I let windows sort by "last edited on..." this is not correct
either since I may have edited old files at a later date which will
get a new and more recent timestamp which can be 2 years after I made
them.

Your help is very much appreciated!
Click to expand...

You have to use a file naming format like:

yy-mm-dd country
OR
yyyy-mm-dd country

So you'd have to rename them.
And then also (IIRC) there is a registry setting to use the *original*
numerical sorting order, instead of the newer one defaulted to by WinXP
(which you can address later).
 
You have to use a file naming format like:

yy-mm-dd  country
OR
yyyy-mm-dd  country

So you'd have to rename them.
And then also (IIRC) there is a registry setting to use the *original*
numerical sorting order, instead of the newer one defaulted to by WinXP
(which you can address later).
Click to expand...

Awesome, thank you very much for your fast and simple help, Big_Al and
Bill in Co.! I changed all the names to yyyy-mm-dd format and now
windows sorts them correctly.
 
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