Controlling the "Save As" Dialog Box

[yalamo]

How do I make the folders in the "Save as" dialog box appear alphabetically when it pops up? Right now they seem to be in chronological order of their creation, when the dialog box first pops up. This is true, at least in my PC, when pressing "Save as" in any application except MS Office.
And I don't mean by right clicking to get a context menu that says "Arrange Icons By Name" after you press "File>Save as". I would like the folders to appear in alphabetical order after just pressing "File>Save as"
The same question applies to the "Open file" dialog box.
Any one know how to do this?

 

[linney]

See if any of the suggestions in these threads help you?

File..Open/Save Dialogs shows reverse order, help!
thread779-931774

Folder contents listed in reverse order when saving/opening/browsing
thread779-1276129

 

[yalamo]

Linney - thanks. But no it doesn't work.

First of all, there is nothing wrong with Windows Explorer. That works fine, and what ever order I decide to show the files in the folder, it will remember them the next time I open Explorer. The problem is in the "Open File" or "Save File As" dialog opened from any application except MS Word, Excel, and Power Point. Is there a clue here?

Secondly, 4000 folders and subfolders seems like a lot to me. I don't know where I can find out how many folders I have (can anyone tell me?). I'm sure that I have at least a few hundred, because there are more there than I am willing to count, but I doubt that I have 4000. Furthermore, this situation has been bothering me since I first got my PC, and the number of folders then (downloaded from my old (WIN 98) PC with a 10 GB hard disk, was definitely less than a hundred.

This is not the first time I've raised this problem, and I never received a satisfactory answer. I had a similar problem with WIN 98 once, and the problem was easily solved (pressing Control while shutting the Window). It may be, as someone in one of the links you says, WIN XP is a stupid OS, and we have to live with it, I'm just glad I don't have Vista.

 

[linney]

Does the output from running ChkDsk on a drive give you a total number of Directories (folders)?

I also believe that there is a unresolvable bug in all Windows about remembering settings that once occurring is only resolvable after the next clean install of the operating system, not that I am recommending that action.

Have you looked in Group Policy to see if this setting is coming in to play -

User Configuration/ Administrative Templates/ Desktop/ "Don't Save Settings On Exit"?

 

[yalamo]

linney, thanks for your help and effort, but probably what you say about an unresolvable bug in Windows is correct; and you're right, I don't intend to do a clean install just to try and fix this problem.

I ran ChkDsk to see if it shows the number of folders on the disk, and I still don't know. MS is very generous and gives you lots of time to watch the screen as it says "41 percent complete...42% complete...". However, as soon as it does complete, it presents you with a screenful of results for about a second, and then proceeds with installing Windows.

I can't get into Group Policy because I have XP Home.

Thanks anyway.

 

[linney]

I can't get into Group Policy because I have XP Home".

You cannot, you need XP Pro, so forget about that suggestion, anyway it was not that significant an idea.

The results from ChkDsk should be in the Event Viewer log, Use the view / filter option and search for Winlogon in the Event Viewer (Application Folder).

 

[yalamo]

linney, thanks, with a little bit of egg on my face.

It turns out from event viewer that I have 5766 folders just in my C: Drive (I also have a D: Drive). With all that, I repeat that this problem is with me ever since I first got this WIN XP PC a few years ago, and I'm pretty sure that I didn't have very many folders then.

 

[linney]

See what the maximum folder number is set to via the 'BagMRU Size' value in these keys. The default value is 5000, you could try increasing it to 8000.

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Shell

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\ShellNoRoam