I’m one of those reluctant users of Windows Vista…and the other day it gave me something else to gripe about besides the UAC. I powered on my trusty laptop and tried to delete a bunch of files. Normally, this is a simple task of holding down they Ctrl key while you click on the files. But for some reason, it wasn’t working…I even tried Ctrl-A to “Select All” files. No luck!
After doing a bit of research, I found out this problem occurs because certain applications add a “rogue” key to the registry, which prevents you from selecting multiple items in Windows Explorer.

One solution is to use the “Reset Folders” command under Organize -> Folder and Search Options -> View, but I found that my problem had perpetuated to other folders. So a more brute force solution is to delete something called “Bags” in the registry.

1. Run “regedit”.
2. Navigate to the following key:
   

   HKCU\Software\Classes\Local Settings\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Shell\Bags

3. Right-click on the “Bags” branch and select “Export” to make a backup.
4. Delete the “Bags” branch.
5. Logout and login again.

Apparently, “Bags” stores the user’s view state for each folder. So if you delete it, Vista will re-create it when you login again.

With the increased security in Windows Vista, installing server applications can be a pain compared to XP/2000/2003. But here’s a quick solution:

1. Click Start -> All Programs -> Accessories then right-click on the “Command Prompt” icon and select “Run as administrator”. This will open a Command Prompt window with Administrator rights.
2. Navigate to the directory where you saved the apache*.msi install file, and enter:
   

   msiexec /i apache*.msi

   where, apache*.msi is the name of the actual file. Tip: press Tab after “apache” to use the auto-complete feature. Then continue the setup as you normally would.

3. Do the same thing if you need to install PHP:
   

   msiexec /i php*.msi