Tuesday, March 21, 2006

Quick Launch keeps disappearing -- no more

OK, you're already familiar with the registry hacks that had to do with spyware, and you've done your damndest to filter them out of Google because that wasn't your problem, was it.

It wasn't in my case, either. I'd log out of XP, then log back in and the space for the Quick Launch was there but the icons weren't. Turn off the QL toolbar and turn it back on, and there they were. Royal PITA to do every time you log in.

Chances are good if this is your problem, that you work in a networked situation where the sysadmins have put your Application Data folder on a network share that's mounted at startup. Trouble is, the moment at which Windows needs to retrieve that Quick Launch folder probably precedes the moment that Windows maps the share to a drive -- and the registry settings which tell Windows where to find the QL use (you guessed it) a drive address. This is the same reason that wallpapers I select from Firefox don't return on startup; the Quick Launch shortcuts folder and the FF wallpaper are both stored in subfolders of Application Data (which on non-networked computers is neatly tucked into your C:\Documents and Settings directory). In fact, Quick Launch is actually application data belonging to Internet Explorer.

Here's the solution. Usual disclaimer about editing registry and destroying your system here, the secretary will disavow all yada yada yada...

The first thing you need to know is the UNC path to your Application Data folder. In our case, my network share is 'yourshare' and the U: drive maps to
\\yourshare\yourdepartment\yourusername\

There are two registry keys which point to your application data's location; in my case their values used drive addresses instead of UNC addresses.
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Shell Folders\AppData
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\User Shell Folders\AppData
Those keys' values default to U:\myusername\Application Data which is technically correct but undefined at the moment they're needed.

Change both of them to \\yourshare\yourdepartment\yourusername\Application Data and quit regedit. Log out and log back in and you should be fine and dandy.

IE7b2 Testing: day 3. Pitchforks and torches.

The March 20 release was installed this morning. IE7 doesn't pass any tests it failed in the previous blog on this subject. It also doesn't change its behavior with any of the following DTDs, on either IIS or Apache servers:
  • HTML 4.01 Loose
  • HTML 4.01 Strict
  • XHTML 1.0 Transitional
  • XHTML 1.0 Strict
  • XHTML 1.1
More disappointing is the official remark from Microsoft that this second version of IE7b2 represents the final renderer for the shipping version of IE7.

Paul Thurrott was right the first time: it's time to start badging websites again if CSS2 is to stake its claim as a standard, and let IE users deal with dodgy looking websites the way Netscape 4 users had to. Otherwise, Microsoft won't have an incentive to release a 7.5 update the way they did with 5.5.
  • Use QUOTE.
  • Use OBJECT to encapsulate non-text content and cascade it down to progressively less rich content.
  • Use BUTTON on forms the way it was meant to be used and put a note on the form linking to why it doesn't work in IE with links to MSDN's IE blogs anchored to the comment section.
If being a big fucking nuisance is the only method left to get Microsoft to pay attention to standards, be one.