Basj,
Thank you for the info on the second question. I will definitely look into it.
On the first question, not sure I can explain this any better.
When I load a saved group of explorer windows, instead of each just opening directly in the Groupy window, they open outside of it for just an instant then are added to the group window. If I have several Explorer windows in a group it's really crazy to watch. It looks similar to running a batch file and seeing the Command prompt windows flashing on and off in the background as the batch file executes.