Windows 7 - How to Sort Folders/Files by Custom Property?

[waggonerchristopher]

I am not a computer expert, and definitely hate getting into complicated things like coding and all. That being said, here's what this post is really all about.

I want to be able to sort files by a custom property. Right now, I sort files by name, which in a lot of cases, works out. But what if I want to give them a "hidden name", and sort them by that, such that the real name still appears on the screen, but the sorting is done based on the "hidden name"? Is there a way to do that? Here is an example to make things easier to understand.

A folder consists of Harry Potter movies. In order to sort them in the right order, one would have to name them by number, so the order would look something like this.

Harry Potter 1
Harry Potter 2
Harry Potter 3
Harry Potter 4
Harry Potter 5
Harry Potter 6
Harry Potter 7
Harry Potter 8

However, what if someone wanted to name them without numbering them? Sorting them by name would put them out of order entirely.

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (2)
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - Part 1 (7)
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - Part 2 (8)
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (4)
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (6)
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (5)
Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (1)
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (3)

Do you see what I mean? Ignore the numbers in the brackets, those are just for the purposes of providing further clarity.
So, what if I were to give them this "hidden name" that I've been talking about? So, the file with the name "Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone" will have the "hidden name" set as "Harry Potter 1", and so on. With all files named and set as per the above instructions, selecting the option to "Sort by Hidden Name" should allow the movies to be set in their correct order without any numbers appearing in their names.

So, is there any way in which I can do that on Windows 7 without getting into any complications?

I got into a complication with this once, by creating shortcuts of the files/folders that I wanted to sort in proper order, which allowed me to fill in custom information with the "comments" property, as shortcuts have that one. And then, sorting them by comments allowed me to achieve the desired result. However, there were two things in the process that made the output not worthwhile.
1. Every file/folder was a shortcut, which also showed the "curved arrow" symbol along with the icon/preview.
2. Since they were all shortcuts, moving the original file/folder would make them non-functional.
3. Filling in information in the "comments" property showed that information in the screentip upon hovering the cursor on the file/folder, something that cannot be ignored.

I provided that information so that people will know that's not the solution. Just trying to be as clear as possible in order to make things as less inconvenient for you fine people as I can. Thank you for taking the time to read this, and I will most certainly let you know if any given solution works for me.