July 29, 2005Jul 29, 200507/29/05Often I see people asking why they can’t create more than around 2000 threads in a process. The reason is not that there is any particular limit inherent in Windows. Rather, the programmer failed to take into account the amount of address space each thread uses.
July 28, 2005Jul 28, 200507/28/05One reaction I’ve seen when people learn about all the compatibility work done in the Windows 95 kernel is to say,
Why not add code to the installer wizard [alas, page is now 404] which checks to see if you’re installing SimCity and,
July 27, 2005Jul 27, 200507/27/05Last time,
I alluded to weirdness that can result in
the normal cycle of destruction messages being thrown out of kilter.
Commenter Adrian noted that the WM_GETMINMAXINFO message
arrives before WM_NCCREATE for top-level windows.
This is indeed unfortunate but (mistake or not)
it’s been that way for over a decade and changing it now
would introduce serious compatibility risk.
July 26, 2005Jul 26, 200507/26/05There are two window messages closely-associated with window
destruction,
the WM_DESTROY message
and
the WM_NCDESTROY message.
What’s the difference?
The difference is that
the WM_DESTROY message
is sent at the start of the window destruction sequence,
whereas the WM_NCDESTROY message is sent at the end.
July 25, 2005Jul 25, 200507/25/05As part of the going-away festivities for my friend, a group of us went to The Herbfarm, the local restaurant referenced in Clue I of Puzzle #3.
The restaurant is nestled in the Sammamish Valley, right next to the Willows Lodge resort and its restaurant,
July 25, 2005Jul 25, 200507/25/05Robert Scoble’s embarrassment over forgetting to pay a restaurant bill reminds me of an even more embarrassing incident experienced by a component team from the Windows 95 team.
To celebrate something or other, their team went to lunch at The Salish Lodge,
July 22, 2005Jul 22, 200507/22/05Marin Alsop has been selected to lead the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra. The development has gotten a lot of attention, presumably, because this makes Maestra Alsop (as she prefers to be called) the first woman to be named music director of a major U.S.
July 22, 2005Jul 22, 200507/22/05One of the flags to
the QueueUserWorkItem function
is
WT_EXECUTELONGFUNCTION.
The documentation for that flag reads
The callback function can perform a long wait.
This flag helps the system to decide if it should create a new thread.
As noted in the documentation,
July 21, 2005Jul 21, 200507/21/05Scientists continue to amaze us with their research breakthroughs, such as a discovery late last year that going for a walk on a nice day makes you feel better. What would we do without science?
July 21, 2005Jul 21, 200507/21/05The FindFirstFile function is not a SQL query. It’s a very simple directory enumerator. There is a slightly fancier version called FindFirstFileEx, but even that function doesn’t add much at present beyond filtering for directories or devices.
You don’t get to pass it sort criteria like or “return the files/directories sorted smallest file first”,
