The Old New Thing

How do I protect myself against a COM call that can hang? I’m already running the server out-of-process.

Raymond ChenJanuary 22, 2021Jan 22, 202101/22/21

You can cancel the call, and if the server ignores you, it's left working on a canceled operation.

What happens to the value returned from the function passed to Queue­User­Work­Item?

Raymond ChenJanuary 21, 2021Jan 21, 202101/21/21

Nothing. Nothing at all.

How do I disassociate a thread from an I/O completion port?

Raymond ChenJanuary 20, 2021Jan 20, 202101/20/21

Escaping the trap.

How can I prevent another program from showing a thumbnail preview in the taskbar?

Raymond ChenJanuary 18, 2021Jan 18, 202101/18/21

You can't, really. It's not your window.

The perils of the accidental C++ conversion constructor

Raymond ChenJanuary 15, 2021Jan 15, 202101/15/21

Single-parameter constructors are also conversions.

How can I write a C++ class that iterates over its base classes?

Raymond ChenJanuary 14, 2021Jan 14, 202101/14/21

Variadic templates to the rescue.

The misleading MIDL error message: MIDL5023: The arguments to the parameterized interface are not valid

Raymond ChenJanuary 13, 2021Jan 13, 202101/13/21

They aren't valid, but then again, nothing would have been.

Why am I receiving SHCNE_UPDATEDIR notifications that my code never generates?

Raymond ChenJanuary 12, 2021Jan 12, 202101/12/21

You did generate them, indirectly.