How to manually sort files in win explorer?

Question

I want to manually sort (drag and drop) my files in a certain (not in all) folders (win xp sp3).

Is there any fix to do it ?

If no - is there another file explorer with the feature.

Answer 1

You can manually drag and drop files in sub-folders. But within a given folder, the sorting order is either by name, time or type. To impose an ordering, a common way is to rename the files by putting a numeric prefix in front of the filenames:

01 sample file Z
02 sample file XXX
03 sample file ddd
99 sample file aaa

Make sure that all numbers have the same length.

Answer 2

This has worked for me on Win XP-SP3. On Win 7 it sometimes but rarely works.

• In the target folder, create a temporary folder, of any name you wish.
• In reverse of your desired order, drag the files in the folder, one by one into your temporary folder, until all have been moved.
• On the keyboard, press Ctrl-Z to undo the move for each file moved.
• As each file is move is undone, the file will be restored to the original folder and be placed below the files that exist in the folder at that time.
• The last file moved back into the original folder is the first file you moved out, and will be at the very bottom of the files.
• The temporary folder can then be deleted.

The order will persist for some time, but will not be permanent.

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Another way to do it is to change the modification date to the order you desire the files to be shown in, then click the date column heading to cause the folder to be sorted in date order. The order of the files will persist as long as the file modification times are unchanged.