Cannot.Select.Multiple.Files

Yesterday, I was working as usual on Windows Vista and all a sudden, I discovered that I could no longer select multiple files in Windows Explorer. None of the shortcut keys seemed to work anymore i.e. CTRL+A, SHIFT+Left Mouse Click and rebooting could not solve the problem.

Other symptoms I encountered:

• Select All option in Organize button is disabled (greyed)
• Select All option in Edit menu is disabled (greyed)
• Mouse highlight over and drag does not work.

That makes copying files a pain as I have to click through each and everyone of them. *GRRRrrr*

I ran a search through the Internet and found out that some people were facing a similar problem. There were some suggestions to do a Reset on the folders but that didn't work for me.

I contacted my IT support and they said they have not received any reports on this before and therefore, could not provide me with a solution. Nothing showed up when I checked support.microsoft.com. Looks like I have no choice but to contact our 'MCS Vista grandmaster'.

This morning I received an e-mail detailing a fix. This is what you can do to bring Explorer back to its sanity.

1. Open Regedit
2. Navigate to HKCU\Software\Classes\Local Settings\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Shell\
3. Delete the Bags & BagMRU keys

Explorer should be back to normal then.

[Updated]
If you did the above and it doesn't work, try killing the Explorer process first and then run RegEdit.exe from Taskmgr to delete the keys. Reboot your system after that.

Disclaimer: If you don't know what's all that, don't do it ya. Messing with the registry is no play play.

Is.This.The.Sign?

Hmmm.... is this the sign for me to stop blogging?

Weekly Stats Report: 15 Jan - 21 Jan 2007
Project: Firedancer.Unleashed!
URL: http://serena-yeoh.blogspot.com/

	Mon	Tues	Wed	Thur	Fri	Sat	Sun	Total	Avg
Pageloads	2	0	1	1	0	1	0	5	1
Unique Visitors	2	0	1	1	0	1	0	5	1
First Time Visitors	2	0	1	1	0	1	0	5	1
Returning Visitors	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0

MCTS.MOSS.Configuration

I was quite suprised to know that I passed my 70-630 TS: Office SharePoint Server 2007, Configuring exam today. I thought all hope was lost when I read Mei Ying's blog and found out that she already had her results but I have not gotten mine. I have been checking my transcript since then for days and found no new entries :(

I thought I failed but then today, I received a congratulating e-mail. What a relief?! I'm now a certified MOSS "Configurator". *BwaHa* *BwaHa* *BwaHaHaHaHa*

KLCC.Tower.Lift.Glitch

How many times have you got onto a lift in KLCC Tower 2 but only to find that it won't stop at your floor despite you went into the correct lift? (When that happens, never EVER go into the stairwells!) The reason for this is because the KLCC lifts are double-deckers with the bottom deck serving even floors and the upper deck serving odd floors.

But how do you expect infrequent visitors to know? Here's a glitch I discovered with the lifts that will allow you to travel to any of the odd and even floors within the lift's floor range.

Supposed you want to get to the 29th floor for example to attend the MIND usergroup gathering (which is held once a month on a Saturday) and like most people, you will naturally go to the lifts at the ground floor, which in this instance, will take you to even floors only.

1. Board any of the lifts that will be servicing the floor range. i.e. (23 - 36)
2. If there is no one with you who are going to other floors, select a floor other than yours (usually select one floor below), otherwise, skip this step.
3. When the lift door opens (which isn't on your floor), press the <> button (Open) and quickly scout for the location of the up and down buttons outside the lift. It's either on the left or right side when you exit the lift.
4. Exit the lift (you don't have to run) and quickly press the UP button
5. By now the lift doors will start to close but because you pressed the UP button, it will open again.
6. Get back into the lift and press your desired floor number.
7. The lift will then service your floor.

Jing.Goo.Juen.Ka

I kena jing-goo (got conned) today. After not returning to the office for quite sometime, the parking area where I used to park has now been cordoned-off for construction of a new skyscrapper. Not knowing where else to park, I consulted one of my colleagues.

Colleague: "You park in the KLCC convention centre lah."
Me: "Oh?!"
Colleague: "RM 7 per day only, but then you must leave after 7:00pm wor."
Me: "Hah?!"
Colleague: "Cos if you leave earlier, they will charge you the hourly rate leh."
Me: "Sure ah?!"
Colleague: "Suuuuuure! I tried that myself wot!"

So, I went looking for the KLCC Convention Centre parking entrance but ooops! overshot pulak. Made a turn and found another parking entrance to the convention centre. While entering, I saw a sign that says "Early Bird, RM6:00 before 9:00AM". I look at my clock - 9:05AM, "Aiyah! Zhao-Kai already!" (Chinese saying: "Chicken ran off").

Just go in only lah. Then I saw another sign "7:00PM to 2:00AM - RM7.00". Ok! This must be it lah but... something fishy about that sign. So, I found myself a nice space to park the car and then walked all the way to my office. Sei for lah, late liow.

I settled down and later in the afternoon, boss came over to my cubi.

Boss: "Why are you back?!"
Me: "Cos you CC me in your mail say got meeting mah"
Boss: "I CC you only. I didn't asked you to come back."
Me: "HAH?!"

Boss walks away then I look at my colleague.

Me: "Then how now?"
Colleague: "You go now lor, get charged hourly rate lor, still same got jam wan if you don't believe me."
Me: "Ok lor, I stay till 7:00PM lor."
Colleague: "Don't worry, got so many people stay back with you."

By 6:30 PM all my colleagues went home already. Left me alone gu-ling-ling. Then I continue to read my WCF a bit, then eat my roti and left the office at 7:15 PM. Walked all the way back to convention centre. As I approached the Autopay Station, all a sudden the loud speaker went off ...

Autopay: "PLEASE PAY YOUR PARKING TICKET! PLEASE PAY YOUR PARKING TICKET!"
Me: "Ok lar. So loud for wot?!"
Autopay: "PLEASE INSERT YOUR PARKING TICKET!"
Me: "Ok lar. Don't rush me lar"
Autopay: "Total is RM 22.00"
Me: "WTF!"
Autopay: "PLEASE PAY THE AMOUNT!"
Me: "Grrrr...."
Autopay: "PLEASE PAY THE AMOUNT!"

What to do? I pay lor. So, the whole day, I got conned into the office, got conned to stay back late and got conned to pay extra for my parking :'( but lucky, the traffic not so jam.

Comparing.Assemblies.II

Ok! It turns out that the project I was working on previously about the .NET assembly comparison; it wasn't a compare on one or two .exes or .dlls but to compare about 200 assemblies. *GiAiAiAH* Yeah! That means I gotta do this for approximately 200 times?! *That's Totally iNSaNe!*

But then, before you say, "What's the big deal? You can write a C# program wot?" I would like to assure you that I have thought about that as well, but then, I felt that writing a C# program just to do all that is too overkill. So, I have decided to use a much simpler and traditional approach instead - DOS!

Here's how I did it. To produce the MSIL, I ran the following once in each of the source and target folder:
for %i in (*.dll) do ildasm %i /out=c:\output\source\%i.il

I substituted c:\output\source with c:\output\target for the target assemblies. If your assemblies are executables, replace the *.dll with .exe.

To compare the files, I simply typed:
for %i in (*.il) do fc c:\output\source\%i c:\output\target\%i > c:\output\results\%i.txt

That's It! Cool huh?

New.Blogger

Finally qualified to migrate my blog to the new blogger (previous attempts to migrate during the beta was futile). Well, despite having some new features, which I considered minor, there aren't any new interesting blog templates. What a disappointment?! I think I have practically cycled through most of the available templates over the years of blogging here.

Anyway, what do you guys/gals think? It looks a bit more techie now huh? *HeHe*

Visual.Studio.Orcas.CTP

The January 2007 CTP for Visual Studio "Orcas" is now available for preview. As before, it is provided as a VPC image.

You can download it here.

(Yeah! The file name says Dec2006 CTP)