Thanks for your reply, it has taken me some time and courage to pick it up again...
In DPP, sort by "Shooting Date/Time".
.....Yes, this works, but for some older original files the date has now been changed somehow, so the chronological order is now wrong. And my computer is soooo slow to respond, and DPP keeps hanging. A new computer is necessary.
Files edited in any way are given a new date of the time of editing.
Note also that the Rename Tool allows you to incorporate the shooting date and/or time into the file name.
... Yes, but now I use the date in a format not available, so I add it in a textformat.
I am not sure wether the date on the renamed files will change or not while doing that, it was some weeks ago I did it.
If I rename and make a copy, the date the copy was created is used, NOT the original time and date the photo was taken. In Irfanview I can set this feature, new files keep the original date and time, but then .CR2 files are not recognized and shown by Irfanview (at least in my situation, maybe my Irfanview version is too old), so only half of the photos are renamed (only the .JPG ones, not the RAW photos).
And in Windows 8 (and I think also in Windows 7) , WE lets you make the shooting date one of the visible columns and sort on it
... correct, but it is not standard, you have to open it specifically, and then it is so slow to respond. And .CR2 files are not supplied with shooting date in WE, so only the .JPG photos are sorted.
In DPP, e..g. if I give 1-5 star rating to a file I have to save it, and then in Windows explorer the save date is shown, not the original date which I like to keep, whatever I do with the file and when, because that is not important to me.
I will have to work out a system to rename it before I edit anything, so it remains in chronological order, and later I can rate them, edit them etc. But I would like to check them and reject/delete the bad photos before giving the good ones a logical name. What should I eat first, the egg or the chicken ...
