February 19th, 2004

No code is an island

Raymond Chen
Raymond Chen

Norman Diamond noted in a comment that on Windows 2003 Server, the Display Adapter Troubleshooting slider still lists “full acceleration” as the recommended setting even though the default for Server is “full minus one”. This is one of those “Oh, that’s an easy change” bugs. The discussion probably went like this: Some guy whose idea this was: “For stability reasons, we want to lower the default video acceleration for Server a notch. Dear Video Setup team, can you do that for us?” Video Setup team: “Sure thing, that’s no problem. The default setting is all done by us; it should not have any impact on anybody else. We’ll just do it and be done with it.” Guy: “Sweet. Thanks.” And bingo, the default video acceleration dropped to one notch below full on Server, and everyone was happy. Except that there’s this text tucked away in the Display control panel that has the word “(recommended)” next to “full acceleration”. That didn’t get updated. Oops. (I wouldn’t be surprised if there is also some help text that didn’t get updated for this change.) No code is an island. So when you complain, “Aw come on, it’s a one-line change. What’s taking so long?” think about the little video acceleration slider.

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Old New Thing
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Raymond Chen

Raymond has been involved in the evolution of Windows for more than 30 years. In 2003, he began a Web site known as The Old New Thing which has grown in popularity far beyond his wildest imagination, a development which still gives him the heebie-jeebies. The Web site spawned a book, coincidentally also titled The Old New Thing (Addison Wesley 2007). He occasionally appears on the Windows Dev Docs Twitter account to tell stories which convey no useful information.

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