Keep Contacts sorted by last name?

By default, Windows Contacts sorts by the "name" field, which displays
contacts in order of their first names. Although it is possible to specify
sorting by the "Last name" field, Windows Contacts first displays the
entries in order of "name" and then takes 35 seconds to re-display in order
of "Last name" (tested with a 2.66 MHz computer with 2.5 GB RAM and 1454
contacts on a computer with a clean install of Vista).

Although Windows XP also defaulted to sorting by "name", changing the
sorting to "last name" resulted in Windows Address Book showing the entries
immediately using the desired sorting method.

Have I missed the setting to get immediate "last name" sorting in Windows
Contacts, or has Microsoft taken something that worked well in XP and
crippled it in Vista?

 

Mine stay sorted by Last Name, even with the names showing in First Name,
Last Name order. Do you have "Remember each folder's view settings" selected
in Folder and Search Options? It's usually selected by default. (Click the
Organize button, choose Folder and Search Options, click the View tab).

It never took mine that long to sort either. I tried it with 2,000 names and
it was pretty quick, though I don't remember exactly how quick. I only have
a gig of RAM and a plain old Pentium 4 at 3Ghz.

 

I do have "Remember each folder's view settings" selected. The columns and
sorting method are remembered; the column order is implemented immediately,
and the sorting order is implemented after the green bar moves all the way
across the white box near the top of the screen, but this takes 35 seconds.
Other file and folder operations are fast; this is different.

 

OK, now I see. I didn't have enough contacts in my real Contacts folder for
it to matter. But I see the problem now elsewhere. Unfortunately, I don't
know of a solution other than to show contact filenames in Last Name, First
Name.

Sorry for the anemic response. You might try re-posting this to the Vista
Mail and Contacts group and see if someone else has a better solution.

 

Within each contact, you can set the full name field to be in various
orders, but each goes by default in "First M. Last" order, and it would be a
bother to change over 1500 contacts to such a format and make sure each new
contact is added in the non-default form. Is there some way to set a
property to change the default for the full name?