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The Sensible Sort

If you prefer the Details view in your folder windows, you probably know that this view lets you sort the items in a folder by clicking one of the column heads (Name, Type, Size, or Modified). Unfortunately, clicking the Type head only sorts the files by the description given to the file by Microsoft or by the application that created it, such as 'GIF Image' or 'DAT File'. Some of the descriptions take up way too much space with advertising (for example, every Office file type begins with Microsoft). And the file types may not be grouped in a logical manner.

One solution is to manage files using PowerDesk 4, a free Windows Explorer replacement available from Ontrack Data International. To Windows' file-sorting options, PowerDesk adds the ability to sort files by their description or by their three-letter extension. You can download PowerDesk at PC World's Downloads library or from Ontrack itself. For more information on PowerDesk 4, see "Darn Good Software, Doggone Cheap."

For even more file-sorting options, edit the descriptions of the file types you use most often. For example, if you work with Web graphics, you can change the descriptions for .bmp, .gif, and .jpg files from 'Bitmap Image', 'GIF Image', and 'JPEG Image' to Images-BMP, Images-GIF, and Images-JPEG to group all your image files together when you sort by type.

To change your file-type descriptions, choose View, Options; View, Folder Options; or Tools, Folder Options (depending on your version of Windows) in any folder. Click the File Types tab and scroll through the list of file types to find the one whose description you want to edit. Select it and click Edit or Advanced, depending on your version of Windows. In the Edit File Type dialog box, enter your new description, click OK, and close the remaining dialog boxes. Repeat these steps for all file types whose descriptions you want to alter.