I’ve had to look this up twice in the last three months, so I figure others have probably run into this problem on occasion.
For the past couple of months I have been coping with an incredibly frustrating problem. My files in the File Open dialog box mysteriously started appearing in order of the “Last Modified” date, instead of in alphabetical order….
Here’s what you do: go into Windows Explorer and open a folder such as My Documents. Now choose View|Details. Along the top of the file listing area, you see Name, Type, Size, Modified. If you click any one of these, it will change how your files are sorted in the list.
Now here’s the part that made Windows save this sorting information everywhere. Hold down the Ctrl key and click the X in the upper right-hand corner of the Window to close it.
It works. The crazy thing about this is that Microsoft barely lets you do anything without asking for confirmation. Do you REALLY want to quit? Are you sure? Do you REALLY want to save over that file? Are you sure? But if you happen to hit a key while you’re doing something else, well, OBVIOUSLY that is something that can never happen by accident and CLEARLY there is no reason to confirm this obscure, but universal settings change that will fundamentally alter how you interact with every file in every folder every time you want to open one.
Over the years, I have learned that assuming Apple is evil and Microsoft is stupid is a remarkably reliable metric in dealing with their operating systems.