If you want to sort like Explorer, you are apparently supposed to use StrCmpLogicalW. See: (http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb759947.aspx) and (http://www.pinvoke.net/default.aspx/shlwapi/StrCmpLogicalW.html). I think it is only suited to sorting filenames though, because it may not take account of sorting properly for different languages/cultures.