I recently installed Windows Vista on a work computer and ran into a problem when ever I would drag and drop files.  Windows Explorer would crash everytime.  Initially I thought it was a permissions issue.  After a few weeks of looking and searching the web I was about an hour away from a fresh install when I found the issue.

The Issue:

Get this...It's a bad context menu handler.  That's right, you know the 'right click' options.  Apparently a poorly coded context menu will make Explorer crash.

Solution:

There is a way to edit your registry to fix this, but my guess is that 99% of people don't like doing this because it can have unintended impacts.  So I recommend downloading Shell Extensions Manager.  This little utility will show you all the shell extensions currently installed.

Open the program and disable all extensions that are not Microsoft, Windows, etc.  Then try to drag and drop!  If you need some of the extensions start enabling them one by one until you identify the one that's impacting your system.

Hope this helps!!!

Now that Fall is approaching it's time for the yearly ritual.  Development, Development, Development.  Typically I shut down my various development projects from May to October so I can enjoy the summer.  I have a few ideas of what I'm going to work on this season:

• More Search engine research (continuation of last years project)
• Guild Universe Development - We have some cool ideas and new features!!!
• Mike McGlumphy and I will be teaming up again to do some new sites!
• Site that contains all the links and articles to tools I use for development (thedotnettoolbox.com).
• Contribute to an open source project, or start one.

 I'm always looking for something cool to work on, If you have any cool ideas please send me an email or leave a post!

Here'a a few links to some .NET development tools to help make your life easier.

MSBuild

Automate your build process!

NETTiers

Build applications faster.

Telerik

IMO the best controls out there for .NET.