XP changed the implementation of HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Directory\Shell. In Windows 98, if the default value of Shell was a null string, then the default option of HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Folder\Shell was executed when you double clicked a directory. With XP, the default value of HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Directory\Shell should be any string except "find".
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Folder\shell\DOSShell\command @ = C:\WINDOWS\system32\cmd.exe /k cd "%1"
Basic Customization
To fix this, right click in the white space to pop-up a menu, select Arrange Icons By, and turn off Show in Groups.
Find constrea.h on XP
Explorer Search - 150 seconds Agent Ransack - 7 seconds
Explorer Search - 131 files Agent Ransack - 215 filesThis is unbelievable - don't waste your time with the XP search feature.
Sharing a drive
The trick was to remove the Guest account under Control Panel / Administrative Tools / Local Security Policy / Local Policies / User Rights Assignment / Deny access to this computer from the network. When this was done, all the other computers were able to see the shared drives.
I don't know why the Guest account was set, but the computer was worthless until this setting was removed. I assume that in a domain you will want to lock out Guest, but in a workgroup, you need to allow it.
These are other things I tried to "fix" the problem
To see the contents of the Program Files and Windows directories, add Everyone to their Properties / Security tabs.
Unfortunately, flash (USB) drives are a problem - when I shared one of these on a Windows XP Pro system, it could be seen on another Windows XP system ... but not on my Windows 95 or Windows 98 systems.
More Lies
One system was running out of disk space, so I used Agent Ransack to look for large files. Among others, it found this
C:\Documents and Settings\a\Local Settings \Temporary Internet Files\Content.IE5\MQ29LLWA\AVSEQ02-1[1].wmv 80681 kbytesWell, I tried to find it by navigating to it with Windows Explorer - opening the dirctories one at a time. That's right ... not found.
Content.IE5and the 9 subdirectories under it were not shown.
The solution - I have Explorer configured to allow me to click on any file and copy its path to the clipboard. I used that and pasted the path in the Windows Explorer address bar.
Wow ... a bunch of hidden files and directories are shown (7,500 files, about 128 MB worth).
Interestingly, 8,440 objects are shown in
C:\Documents and Settings\a\Local Settings\Temporary Internet Filesbut not AVSEQ02-1[1].wmv.
I can see why Microsoft does not want you to see this stuff - it allows you to see ALL the crap downloaded with web pages (well, files anyway ... I don't see the cookies this way). You can even open (and copy) javascript (*.js) and style sheets (*.css) that web pages "include". (I have other tools that allow me to read those, so its not that big a deal.) This method also displays the normal Explorer right click menu, not the weak crap Explorer shows for Temporary Internet Files.
As to why one method shows almost 1,000 more objects than the other ... we've already established that Explorer is a lier. It appears that cookies are a part of the difference.
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\FileExts
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\MountedDevicesOn the down side, if your system has a