I have a PentiumII-350 running on Windows 98. At some point in time that appeared not to catch my immediate attention, the list of files in a given directory started displaying as a default in reverse alphabetical order (starting from Z and finishing in A). This also has the effect of displaying the sub folders at the end of the list. This is an annoyance factor only. I was able to stop this from occurring when using My Computer by adjusting the folder settings, although the “make all folders like current folder” did not seem to successfully change the order in all folders, nor did it stop the lists that show when saving or opening files from folders while using something like Internet Explorer. Is there a way, short of re-installing Windows, that I can reset the options for all file list displays to show the standard “folder first - then alpha order of files” settings?

This is certainly an odd problem that I haven’t come across before but it is moderately easy to fix. I am assuming that you are viewing your files in Windows Explorer using the ‘Details’ viewing type (if you are not, change it to this). Once you have changed to this view, you should see headings above each column like ‘Name’, ‘Size’, ‘Type’, etc’¦ Click the ‘Name’ heading and this should change back to ‘folder first - the alpha order of files’. Now you should be able to switch between viewing modes (depending on how you like to view the folders) and still get ‘folder first - the alpha order of files’. I hope this helps and sorry for the delay in responding to your query.