How to Defeat Microsoft's First Shall Be Last, Last Shall Be First Bug?

[Brainster]

I have a pretty simple little MP3 player that I just plug into my USB drive to transfer files over. Everything works fairly well, but there is one problem with Microsoft's Windows Explorer, and that's the ridiculous last shall be first and first shall be last bug. Quite simply, if you grab, say ten files in WE and drag them over to the MP3 player, the files are written in the following order: 10,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,1. Annoying as hell with albums where you want the tracks to be played in correct order and unbelievably frustrating with things like radio plays, lectures and audio books. The only way so far I have found of defeating this is to transfer each file individually or intentionally misnumber the first and last files, but that's a pain and can result in confusion later. Basically I need a better file manager program. Thoughts, suggestions? This is on a legacy computer with Windows 2000, so telling me they fixed it in XP won't help me much.

 

[BenBurch]

Write a DOS batch script to do it for you?

 

[ArmillarySphere]

Try to change your file numbering scheme - use 01, 02, 03 ... 10

I'm guessing it's using the standard alphabetical sort, but with a twist so that " " (space) counts as after 0.

 

[SezMe]

AB Commander is my file manager.

 

[Brainster]

I figured it out; it's a flaw in the way Microsoft reads the drag and drop routine. If you highlight the files you want going down (which most people would do I assume), then click on the last one, Ms interprets that as you want the last one to be first in the queue (it does not explain why the first one gets shuttled to the last one's position). The way to avoid this is obvious, either highlight the files going up or make sure that when you click to click and drag that you're hovering over the first one.

Thanks for the suggestion about AB commander; that does look like a better program than WE.

 

[arthwollipot]

Hmm. I can't currently imagine a situation where it would matter which file Windows moved first.

 

[laca]

Hmm. I can't currently imagine a situation where it would matter which file Windows moved first.

How about tracks on an audio CD? Or some program that reads files by their order in the directory entry rather than alphabetically?

 

[Worm]

I have the same issue

By default my MP3 player plays files by folder and then in the date order that they are placed on the device, rather than alphabetically. Can be a real pain for talking books...

 

[Brainster]

I have the same issue

By default my MP3 player plays files by folder and then in the date order that they are placed on the device, rather than alphabetically. Can be a real pain for talking books...

See my response above; all you have to do is be a little more careful when you drag and drop.

 

[arthwollipot]

How about tracks on an audio CD? Or some program that reads files by their order in the directory entry rather than alphabetically?

Hm. Okay. I always listen to music on random play (I'm a fan of the musical non-sequitur) but when making mix CDs for special purposes I manually arrange them before burning them. Both Windows Media Player and iTunes let me do this. I haven't tried using anything else to make mix CDs.

And I've never come across any software that reads files by their order in the directory - not that that means that such software doesn't exist, of course. Only that my experience hasn't been wide enough.

 

[ChrisC]

Select the last item and shift-click the first. It's been a long time since I've used windows, so I assume that still works.

 

[not daSkeptic]

And I've never come across any software that reads files by their order in the directory ...

Actually, most software works this way. Any particular ordering of files is typically done by the application, not the OS. When a program asks for the set of files in a directory, the OS doesn't know how (or even if) they should be sorted, so it generally doesn't bother. It just blindly coughs up whatever records it has and leaves any ordering decisions up to the particular software.