📎 AI Summary:
The thread discusses how to organize files in Windows Explorer by type, specifically seeking a way to group similar file types (like videos or images) together in a preferred order. The original poster expresses frustration that Windows does not allow reordering groups beyond ascending or descending, and initial suggestions like drag-and-drop are clarified as not possible in Windows 7. Final advice indicates that only the order of groups can be changed, but not customized to a specific sequence, leading to the conclusion that their goal cannot be achieved through standard grouping options.

MisterCerberus

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Apr 18, 2016
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Thread Author #1
If I set my files to Sort by file type in Windows Explorer, is there a way to change which order the various file types are arranged in? I would like to have all of my videos and images together respectively; but currently my videos are sandwiched between different types of image file.
 

Solution
No it does, but it won't group with the granularity you are looking for. There are a couple hundred "group by" fields, you may need to either look through them and see if there are any that are specific to a video or music type file and group by that or if you can find a program that can edit those properties you could use a blank one such as Comment and for example tag all your videos files as "Video", the different types of music files as "Music" then you could group by the comment field and achieve what your looking for.

holdum333

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Hi! One way that I know, would be to drag and drop! Other members may reply latter!
Welcome to the forum!
 

holdum333

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OK Sorry! I don't know then! Maybe other members will reply!;):)Was just a thought that it might work!
Would take awhile! How about copy and paste?? Surely there is a way to separate them!
 

holdum333

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Hi @MisterCerberus ! I see you keep visiting this page. I may be wrong, but if no one is replying to your issue, they may not have a suggestion for your issue!;):)
 

Neemobeer

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Yes this is easy to do. Press alt if you don't have the menu always present. Under the View menu change "Sort By" to Name and click on "Group By" and set it to type.
 

MisterCerberus

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Apr 18, 2016
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Thread Author #8
Yes this is easy to do. Press alt if you don't have the menu always present. Under the View menu change "Sort By" to Name and click on "Group By" and set it to type.

Okay. Then what? Do I somehow change the order of the groups and then change it back? How do I do that?
 

Neemobeer

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You can only change the order of the groups as either ascending or decending
 

Neemobeer

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No it does, but it won't group with the granularity you are looking for. There are a couple hundred "group by" fields, you may need to either look through them and see if there are any that are specific to a video or music type file and group by that or if you can find a program that can edit those properties you could use a blank one such as Comment and for example tag all your videos files as "Video", the different types of music files as "Music" then you could group by the comment field and achieve what your looking for.
 

Solution

Neemobeer

Windows Forum Team
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So a little more information. You could write a powershell script to edit these properties. You would need to import the dsofile.dll library to edit the properties. Once that is imported you could search through the directories and you would just need some simple logic (like if this is this file type set the comment property to the correct type such as Video, or Music) Then you could group by comment and you would achieve your goal.