Why won't windows explorer sort directories under the 'Temporary ASP.NET Files' directory by name?

Question

When I navigate to C:\WINDOWS\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v2.0.50727\Temporary ASP.NET Files\myfirstproject\202aebd2\f0e764e2\assembly\dl3 in Windows explorer, there are 108 folders with 8 character hexadecimal names. Explorer won't sort this folder by name (or value ). What gives?

Answer 1

It is sorting them by name. Unfortunately, it's using a natural sort which includes numbers. This means that 99b6... sorts before 182c..., because 99 < 182.

Answer 2

I had this same question. I found that you can, at least in XP, set the sort order by adding a registry key. This should take care of your issue. Remember to restart Explorer. You can kill its process and then restart it through Task Manager.

User Key: [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer]
System Key: [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\    Explorer]
Value Name: NoStrCmpLogical
Data Type: REG_DWORD (DWORD Value)
Value Data: (1 = Windows 2000 method)

Originally found the answer here:

http://www.pctools.com/guides/registry/detail/1293/

Edit:

Looks like that answer actually comes from a Knowlege Base article.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/319827

Answer 3

Windows can make directories backed by other directories. For instance the old-style Temporary Internet Files was backed by 4 separate directories. Knowing this I'd guess that it's sorting each directory individually instead of the aggregate.