Problem with Win Xp Explorer >View > Explorer Bar - Folders

You can set Explorer to view folders by going to: Win Xp Explorer > View > Explorer Bar >Folders
For Ducth users: Beeld > Explorer-balk >Mappen

If your explorer seems to be stuck into this Explorer View, then you probably have found the solution here:

• From Explorer, click on Tools, Folder Options, and then the File Types tab.


• Find (NONE) Folder in the list and highlight it.


• Click the Advanced button. (Explore will probably be bold).


• Changed it to Open, by clicking on open, then clicking the Set Default button. Open should now be bold.


• Click Ok to close the windows.

If this fixed your problem, than your problem was due to the fact, that the default folder action was set to explore,instead of open. Cheers!

Remote Desktop Managers

Do you have multiple RDP-sessions on you're computer and would you like to manage them more efficiently?
If your answer is YES!, than have a look at Remote Desktop Connection Manager 2.2 (it's a free) from Microsoft. It has some nice feautures like thumbnails from RDP-sessions, and you can switch rapidly between sessions.
Other free alternatives are: Remote Desktop Manager (standard edition) , Terminals, CoRD for Mac and RDTabs.
Non-free alternatives are: VisionApp Remote Desktop, Royal TS (10 connections free)

If you have problems connecting to the machines with these tools but not with the standard RDP-utility (Mstsc.exe), you might consider installing Microsoft's RDP 6.x and up and registering Mstscac.dll (RDP ActiveX component) with: regsvr32.exe c:\windows\system32\mstscax.dll

Determine if a MSI-installation is running

Did you know only 1 MSI (Windows Installer-file) can be running at a time?
So if you are already installing a MSI-file and you try aonother install you'll probably get the following message:
Error 1618 or Error 1500 "Installation already in progress"
But how can you determine a MSI is running before you run your installation?
It's easy! Just monitor the following registry-key for its's presents:
SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Installer\InProgress
If this key doesn NOT exist, you are save to start a Windows Installer-installation.

One way to use this if an user logs in for the first time ever. Often al sorts of MSI-repairs are triggered. So installing software while these MSI-"repairs" are running is not a good idea if you are installing some software at login.

I made a routine to check for 5 seconds (loop) if a MSI was running. If that was the case within those 5 deconds, I would make my installationwrapper wait for 10 seconds and then check again. To protect my wrapper against an infinite loop, the max. wait time was 20 loops (20x 10 = 200 seconds). That should do it when an user is logging in for the very first time!

Sources: http://www.appdeploy.com/messageboards/tm.asp?m=9119&mpage=1&key=&#9119
http://www.installsite.org/pages/en/msifaq/error/1618.htm