With Vista (and probably XP and IE7) right clicking on a zip file on a network share brings up an Internet Explorer dialogue:

This page has an unspecified potential security risk. Would you like to continue?

It appears that the OS thinks that your network share is in the Internet Zone rather than the Intranet Zone. This is easily fixed by:

1. Control Panel > Internet Options > Security.
2. Select Local intranet > click Sites > Advanced.
3. Type your server name into the textbox (e.g. If the server is called FileServer just type FileServer) and click Add.
4. Click Close > OK > OK.

To Strongly name an assembly you need to associate it with a public and private key. This can be either done by the developer when they compile the assembly (signing) or by at a later stage for instance by the QA department (delayed signing).

Public and private keys can be associated with code signing certificates, generated using sn.exe, or they can be generated from within Visual Studio.

Open the project properties for the assembly you want to sign and check ‘sign the assembly’ on the signing tab. To create a key file, select New from the drop down and follow the directions or Browse for an existing key file. If you create a key file it is worth moving it from the bin directory as you should be using it across multiple projects.

Once compiled you will have a signed assembly with a strong name.

When I am doing anything more complicated than simple file browsing I use Xplorer2 rather than the windows file browser.

One of the features of Xplorer2 is the ability to run commands on files you have selected.

These are the commands I currently have set up:

• VS Cmd
  $”C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 8\SDK\v2.0\Bin\sdkvars.bat”
  Sets the console to act like a Visual Studio command prompt
• Get Public Key
  $sn -Tp “$F”
  Gets an assemblies public key (requires vs Cmd to be run first).
• DiffMerge Files
  >”C:\Program Files\SourceGear\DiffMerge\DiffMerge.exe” “$F” “$G”
  Uses Source Gear’s DiffMerge to diff files from each pane.
• DiffMerge Folders
  >”C:\Program Files\SourceGear\DiffMerge\DiffMerge.exe” “$P” “$I”
  Uses Source Gear’s DiffMerge to diff folders from each pane (although Xplorer2 does this well enough itself).