Update: It's not only VFP with the bad Open sorts after all. I tested a lot of apps, and I found 2 other apps where the odd sort is occurring in exactly the same way. But most apps are fine, like all the Office stuff, WE, and most other non-MS apps. Oh yeah - this started about 2-3 days ago, though I haven't installed anything lately except several MS security patches (uh-oh, maybe that's it!)

Not sure what the apps with the Open problem have in common - nothing, AFAIK. There is VFP7, Canvas Pro (a CAD app), and Adobe Photo, all produced by different mftrs.

Oh - one more I just found. The IE Open/Browse comes up with the backward sort too.

I guess I'm suspecting my XP indexing is fouled up in these apps, just bad enough to cause this problem. Any suggestions on how I can reindex or "reset" all my XP sort/list settings?