When selecting a remote share in Windows Explorer the user interface may appear to hang for a short period and you may see the blue circle spinning during this time. This period could be up to ten minutes, after which the Explorer window will work as expected.

This issue will repeat if you reselect that folder in Windows Explorer.

This issue can occur when all of the following circumstances are true:

• The remote share is a Distributed File System (DFS) root.
• The DFS root target share is set to Files or programs from the share will not be available offline setting.
• The Windows Vista or Windows Server 2008 client has the share path UNC for that DFS root in its client-side cache.
• There are multiple DFS root targets.

This hang or delay may be longer if the DFS root targets are distributed to network locations and sites remote from the client.

You have a shell extension that was created by using Microsoft Foundation Class (MFC). The shell extension is hosted in Windows Explorer. When you use Explorer, the Explorer.exe process becomes unresponsive. This problem occurs when the following conditions are true:

• You do not have Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 installed on the computer.
• The shell extension was created by using Microsoft Foundation Class (MFC) in Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 Service Pack 1 (SP1) or in Microsoft Visual C++ 2008 Feature Pack.

Consider the following scenario:

• On a computer that runs Windows Vista or Windows Server 2008, you select multiple files that have different formats.
• You click the Print button on the taskbar of Windows Explorer to print these files as a batch.

In this scenario, the operating system prints all the files in the same format as the last file.

For example, you select the following files in order:

• a.xls
• b.doc
• c.txt

Then, you click the Print button on the taskbar of Windows Explorer. After the files print, you find that all the files are printed in the same format as the c.txt file.

Note: This problem does not occur if either of the following conditions is true:

• The files that you select are of the same type.
• You print the files individually.

When shift-clicking the “Views” button in Explorer, in the Thumbnails view, the filename cannot be restored.

In a network environment, you deploy a Remote Storage solution, and then you migrate some files to Remote Storage. On a Windows Vista-based computer or on a Windows Server 2008-based computer, you use Windows Explorer to view the offline files in Remote Storage. When the system tries to generate the thumbnails from the files, the files are recalled. However, you expect the files to be displayed in Windows Explorer.

On a Windows Vista or Windows Server 2008-based computer, you have a folder that contains many layers of subfolders. Each subfolder contains only one subfolder. When you try to expand the parent folder in the Windows Explorer navigation pane, Windows Explorer expands the folder to the last level of the subfolders as long as each subfolder contains only one subfolder. This problem may cause Windows Explorer to crash if there are many layers of subfolders.

If you have a subfolder that contains two or more subfolders, Windows Explorer stops expanding the folders when it reaches the folder that contains the two subfolders. For example, you have the following folder tree:

• C:\temp
  • C:\temp\1
    • C:\temp\1\2
      • C:\temp\1\2\3
        • C:\temp\1\2\3\4
          • C:\temp\1\2\3\4\4a
          • C:\temp\1\2\3\4\4b

When you click the triangular icon to expand the C:\temp folder, Windows Explorer expands all the way to the C:\temp\1\2\3\4 folder. Windows Explorer does not expand the subfolders inside the C:\temp\1\2\3\4 folder because that folder has two subfolders, 4a and 4b.

Note: This problem does not occur in Windows operating systems that are earlier than Windows Vista.

Consider the following scenario. On a computer that is running Windows Vista or Windows Server 2008, you enable the Always Available Offline setting. Additionally, the offline files in the network folder are synchronized to the cache of the local computer.

If you start a search for the network folder from the toolbar in Windows Explorer when the computer is offline in this scenario, Windows Search may fail. Specifically, no result is returned. However, if you start the search by clicking the Start button, the network folder is successfully found.

This issue may also occur if the network folder is hosted on a non-Windows-based server.

Note: For more information about how to enable the Always Available Offline setting, visit the following Microsoft Web site:

http://windowshelp.microsoft.com/Windows/en-US/Help/02ecf57a-fa36-40be-a5c2-907f51cda1fe1033.mspx#EHC

Useful information on how to use and customize the Send To menu that you can get by right-clicking on a file in the Explorer. Keep reading →

Description: This security update resolves a publicly reported vulnerability in Windows Explorer that could allow remote code execution when a specially crafted saved-search file is opened and saved. If a user is logged on with administrative user rights, an attacker who successfully exploited this vulnerability could take complete control of an affected system. An attacker could then install programs; view, change, or delete data; or create new accounts with full user rights. Users whose accounts are configured to have fewer user rights on the system could be less impacted than users who operate with administrative user rights. The security update addresses these vulnerabilities by modifying the way that Windows Explorer parses saved searches. Keep reading →

You open Windows Explorer in Windows Vista or in Windows Server 2008. However, when you use the List format to view the contents of a folder, the following issues may occur.

Scenario 1

In Windows Explorer, you create a file that has such a long name that the name cannot be fully displayed in the active window. In this scenario, the file that has the long name moves out of the visible region when you perform one of the following actions:

• You try to rename the file that has the long name, or you rename any other file that is in the active window.
• You create a new file in the active window.

If you press F5 to update Windows Explorer, the file is visible again.

Scenario 2

The scroll box moves alternately to the right side and to the left side when you perform the following actions:

• You create many files that do not fit in a single Windows Explorer view.
• You select a file in any column other than the last column.
• You use the arrow keys to move between files.