Highlight Order of Movement Not Preserved in Program Manager (84994)

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You cannot set or preserve the order in which the cursor selection moves. An order does exist, but it results from a nonlinear algorithm within the Windows internal code (USER.EXE). This order, by nature of the algorithm, is not always predictable.

The order assignment that USER.EXE issues is called the "z-order". This name was chosen by analogy to the z-axis on a multidimensional Cartesian coordinate system. As you look at a representation of such a coordinate system illustrated on the printed page, you must visualize the z-axis rising up vertically toward you perpendicular to the plane of the page. Similarly, opening all of the group windows in Program Manager and selecting the Cascade command from the Windows menu results in the z-order arrangement of the open document windows.

When you cycle through the selections by pressing CTRL+TAB, you will find the highlight moves sequentially through the stack.

The z-order may be temporarily reflected in the closed group icons if you were to close each of the windows following the cascaded arrangement. The highlight movement would then proceed from left to right using CTRL+TAB, but the order would eventually be lost as you continue to use the Program Manager.

The z-order associated with the movement of the cursor highlight in the Program Manager should not be confused with the left to right arrangement of the group icons themselves or the order in which they are displayed in the Window menu of the Program Manager. These settings can be saved by selecting Save Settings On Exit from the Options menu in Program Manager.

For more information on the arrangement of icons, query on the following words in the Microsoft Knowledge Base: