Make Task Manager Sort by Base Name on Startup

"I had considered hacking the executable file (taskmgr.exe) to see if there were a way to build this into it, but went with a decidedly easier and less risky method.

Since it amounts to a standard list-view control, what I did was to write an application that can detect if Task Manager is running, and if so, to hook into its list-control and perform the sort (by simulating a column click; I didn’t feel like manually sorting). It took a while to get it to be flexible enough to account for variations (especially since the columns are customizable), and then to allow for sorting on a different column—I figured I may as well have the option.

Unfortunately it means an extra program running in the background, but I already have plans for incorporating it into a more general-purpose app so that it’s not a one-function process, thus making it more acceptable to have it running because it does more things."

As Tom's Hardware claims, the registry key HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\TaskManager has 2 settings that may hold the default column sort order. Unfortunately, the data is in hex and I have no idea what the settings correspond to specifically. Perhaps Synetech can figure it out?