Vista - Folder sorting and details?

I frequently find myself sorting the contents of a folder by modified date or size. What I'd like, though, is for these criteria to apply equally to subfolders and files.

Currently, if I sort by modified date, I'll get a list where all the folders are at the top (sorted by date) then all the files are at the bottom (sorted by date). I'd like to see a single list where the folders and files are interspersed and everything is properly sorted by date (not sorted by type then date as Explorer effectively does for folders). I'm guessing no, but is there any way to get Vista's Windows Explorer to do this?

I'd also like to see the folders' size (of all contents) so I can sort by folder size. Again, I'd like a list where I can sort by size but have folders and files interspersed in a single sorted list.

Is there any 3rd party utility (preferably free) that can do both these things (sort interspersed files and folders, calculate folder size)? One caveat is that it must support network drives. I've found some of the commercial software also provides a free version, but they reserve network functionality for their pro versions...

Actually, the ideal utility would have the above plus some kind of decent multi-file renaming function (but that would just be icing).

Thanks for your help!

"magritte" <magritte.373py2@xxxxxx-mx.forums.net> schrieb im Newsbeitrag
news:magritte.373py2@xxxxxx-mx.forums.net...XYplorer (http://www.xyplorer.com/). There's a free version (search for
XYplorerFree) that can do all of this as well, but the paid version is far
better and continuously developed.

Don

Thanks! I'll give it a try.

You'll give what a try?

Who are you thanking?

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"magritte" <magritte.374q24@xxxxxx-mx.forums.net> wrote in message
news:magritte.374q24@xxxxxx-mx.forums.net...

Since there was only 1 reply, I thought it was obvious...

Nevertheless...

So I did give XYplorer a try and it is quite good. Had to search a bit through the options to find out how to get the folders to be sorted along with the files, but the option is there and works well. I also tried the paid version trial but other than adding a preview to the multi-file rename feature (which is nice) there wasn't anything else I really needed. I'm sure there are lots of nice extra features in the paid version but I was looking for a few specific functions which are handled equally well by the free version.

The only thing I don't like is the performance (at least for networked folders) doesn't seem to be very good. There can be long pauses when scrolling through a large folder or performing certain file operations. This was equally true of the paid version.

I tried a couple of other similar programs and found another one I liked that didn't suffer the same pereformance problem. It's called xplorer2. Like XYplorer there's a free version (which covers all my needs) and a paid version with some more expert features. Because it's faster I prefer it for sorting and calculating folder sizes. However, XYplorer's rename feature is much superior, so I'll probably keep both around.

That's better.
When posting, please quote relevant information so that others know what you’re
talking about.

"magritte" <magritte.37d4u2@xxxxxx-mx.forums.net> wrote in message
news:magritte.37d4u2@xxxxxx-mx.forums.net...

"magritte" <magritte.37d4u2@xxxxxx-mx.forums.net> schrieb im Newsbeitrag
news:magritte.37d4u2@xxxxxx-mx.forums.net...Hmmm, actually XYplorer (paid version) is known to be very fast in network
browsing. Might be some of your settings... if still interested you should
join the user forum to find advice about speeding up the app.

Don

Strange. Well, I tried it again (both the free and the paid demo versions) and they definitely stall when browsing through a large network folder. But otherwise it does seem like a nice app so maybe I'll take your advise when I get a chance and check out their forum.

Thanks again.