Here's one idiotic change in Vista SP1: Looks like Microsoft decided to change the switch to launch the Terminal Services client so it can log on to the console of the machine/server to /admin from /console. The new switch to connect to the console is: %systemroot%\system32\mstsc.exe /admin I suppose I can understand changing the switch to /admin since it's more descriptive, but why the heck...

Somehow I managed to hose my Explorer's default context menu actions for folders when browsing in Explorer. The default action when clicking on a folder now is Search... instead of Explore which brings up the Search dialog when clicking on a folder Ugh. A quick check in the registry comparing the...

Ah progress - you gotta love it. Fewer choices, less control the dumbing down of the masses. I'm checking out some old code that I've used to load Word documents for editing into a Web Browser control. It appears that under Vista this doesn't work any longer as a Word document now refuses to load...

Having gone through easily 50 registration screens in the last few days, reinstalling applications on my new box got me to once again thinking about registration codes in applications. Somebody last week asked me as I provided them with a software key with Help Builder - what's this - this isn't a...

I configured and updated a brand new machine last week and overall the process has been pretty smooth and painless. But once again I'm reminded how silly Windows' scattering of files all over the place really is. I installed the new box on Monday. It's now Saturday night and I'm still picking up a...

So for the last few days I've been going through the final steps of updating Help Builder to properly run under Windows Vista without any file permissions, registry or other sort of elevation requirements. In theory the application should run fine after installation without any sort of crutch like...

Who can you trust when it comes to your status as an Administrator. Checking admin priviliges under Vista is no fun at all and I can't tell whether I am in fact an admin or not. Some things seem to indicate I am, while others

Folder views in Windows Vista's Explorer got even more confusing by yet another layer of 'views' that can be applied by yet another dialog separate from the already buggy View selection dropped down on folders. Getting folders to display in a consistent view is getting harder and harder to do in Windows which is ridiculous.

Mike Volodarsky posts more information how to get F5 debugging working properly in Visual Studio. Due to the way Authentication works in ASP.NET 2.0 some debugging scenarios with F5 fail and a workaround is required.

Folder Virtualization is a feature of Vista that allows virtualizing installation folders into a virtual store so that users who normally wouldn't be able to modify data in the Program Files folder get a private 'shadow' store so they can write to data. Interesting feature and certainly not very obvious...

Oh man, I’m going to REALLY hate Vista from an application installation and configuration perspective for custom applications. To make a long story short, pretty much none of my Windows applications run or in some cases don't install under the default Vista security configuration.