Does anyone know if it makes any difference how the coated panes of the windows are aligned?  Specifically, with soft coat (maximize solar gain) or hard coat (minimize heat loss) is the coating directional? ie, can the double panes (with appropriate coating and argon gas) be installed "backwards" thus negating their effectiveness?  It's a long story but I need to know so that I can figure out what to do next, if necessary.  Thanks to all. 

Yes it does, in most cases though you would consider soft coats as made to minimize U (heat loss) and hards coats maximize solar heat gains SHGC. There is plenty of crossover in this area but there are very few hard coats out there. If you start at the outside plane of glass and call that surface 1 the backside of that pane is surface 2 the outside of the next pane is surface 3 and the inside surface of glass is surface 4. That is for a double pane window. The best windows for solar heat gain in terms of double panes would have a pyrolitic (hard coat) on surface 3. The best U values and low SHGC would typically be a soft coat on surface 2. The first example greatly simplified is one that allows thermal energy in and then does not allow it to radiate out. The second example reflects heat back into the room. So if you have a specific type of low E glass and it is installed either on 2 rather than 3 or vice versa there will be a reduction in the designed performance. The real horror is if the low E was to end up on surface 1 or 4. If this happens and the product is a soft coat, performance will take a big hit AND. the product will lose through weather and cleaning its coating very fast as soft coats are just that very soft. In the case of Hard coats there will be again a very large reduction in performance but they are quite durable so the performance will remain albeit reduced.