Its always a good idea to look at Windows for what it was !!!
Windows, born from DOS 6.221 back in the days of when I had hair.
Windows is exactly what it was back then, just a few modifications on its way through Windows 3, 95,NT4,98,2000, and so on till today.
Windows isa based solely around the Disk Operating System.
DOS
Back in the day you could select a list of file to work with, copy, cut paste etc these would be placed in the ANSI Character order of the first, second third, fourth letter in the file folder name. Folders listed first followed by files.
Other than that using A* B8 C* or indeed A*.* to include extensions would list files or files and folders dependant on the requestd instruction
C:\Windows\System32>dir /?
Displays a list of files and subdirectories in a directory.
DIR [drive:][path][filename] [/A[[:]attributes]] [/B] [/C] [/D] [/L] [/N]
[/O[[:]sortorder]] [/P] [/Q] [/R] [/S] [/T[[:]timefield]] [/W] [/X] [/4]
[drive:][path][filename]
Specifies drive, directory, and/or files to list.
/A Displays files with specified attributes.
attributes D Directories R Read-only files
H Hidden files A Files ready for archiving
S System files I Not content indexed files
L Reparse Points O Offline files
- Prefix meaning not
/B Uses bare format (no heading information or summary).
/C Display the thousand separator in file sizes. This is the
default. Use /-C to disable display of separator.
/D Same as wide but files are list sorted by column.
/L Uses lowercase.
/N New long list format where filenames are on the far right.
/O List by files in sorted order.
sortorder N By name (alphabetic) S By size (smallest first)
E By extension (alphabetic) D By date/time (oldest first)
G Group directories first - Prefix to reverse order
/P Pauses after each screenful of information.
/Q Display the owner of the file.
/R Display alternate data streams of the file.
/S Displays files in specified directory and all subdirectories.
/T Controls which time field displayed or used for sorting
timefield C Creation
A Last Access
W Last Written
/W Uses wide list format.
/X This displays the short names generated for non-8dot3 file
names. The format is that of /N with the short name inserted
before the long name. If no short name is present, blanks are
displayed in its place.
/4 Displays four-digit years
Switches may be preset in the DIRCMD environment variable. Override
preset switches by prefixing any switch with - (hyphen)--for example, /-W.
Old DOS help file listing hasnt changed in a few years.
/SortOrder is the most useful of all the triggers for those who need adaption in their listing.
Hope this helps your query