Important Update: I’ve recently seen a report that this bug can affect the selection of folders using the Find in menu of the Search and Replace dialog. Obviously searching and replacing in the wrong folder can have very dire consequences. So, if you choose to use the Find in Folder… option in Dreamweaver for Windows, be very careful to insure that the correct folder is selected.

And, of course, it’s always a good idea to back up your site before you do extensive search and replace operations across multiple files.

The issue: While defining a site using the Windows version of Dreamweaver, when the users tries to set the local root folder by browsing into and selecting it, the local root folder is set one directory higher than the one he’s chosen.

The (very unsatisfactory) solution: Type in the directory name manually OR select a directory inside the one you actually want to set as the root folder.

More info: I’ve experienced this issue but wasn’t able to get any concrete information until now. Now thanks to a response from David Powers to my post on the Adobe forums we at least know it’s a “known issue.” Here’s David’s response:

…when I reported it as a bug to Adobe, an engineer […] said the problem had already been identified internally by Adobe on Windows 7. I was originally alerted to the problem by Al Sparber, who told me it happened after the Service Pack 2 “upgrade” to Vista. I didn’t have SP2 installed, so I tested my version of CS4 (on 32 bit Vista). There was no problem selecting the local root folder. I then installed SP2, and immediately tested it again: the root folder was not selected.

It affects all versions of Dreamweaver, not just CS4. Adobe’s comment was that SP2 has obviously brought Vista in line with Windows 7. I have no idea if or when a fix will be made available. It’s certainly annoying, but it doesn’t prevent the program from working; and I don’t create new sites every day, so it’s something I can live with.

Added Info: A report that this bug also affect linking to external CSS (and I assume JavaScript) files: http://forums.adobe.com/message/2197998#2197998