>>>Hi Terry, this behaviour has only just started - I have VFP on several machines and they all default to "List" and are sorted by the "Name" column which is what I'm used to - any idea how I can change the rogue PC ? thanks
>>
>>Check also Re: Getfile() gives non-alphabetical listing Thread #515439
>
>Found it, and it leads to Q233526. Now it's only a matter of applying those W9x things to today's Windowses. But if the bug is so old, they probably didn't change the code which causes it, so there's a chance it may work today.

Check the Russian thread as well, they somehow applied something similar.

BTW, how did you find it? I stopped when I saw David's link pointing to nowhere, though I only had few minutes (seconds) to check...