The Old New Thing

December 20, 2005 - The Old New Thing

“Pro forma” was so 1990’s

December 20, 2005 Dec 20, 2005 12/20/05
Raymond Chen
"Non-GAAP" is the new "pro forma". Remember the exciting dot-com boom days? Everybody was reporting "pro forma" results. Pro forma in the 1990's turned into a euphemism for "We just made this stuff up". But after the dot-com bust and a series of accounting scandals, the phrase pro forma turned into a bad word on Wall Street. People swore off...

Why does Windows setup lay down a new boot sector?

December 20, 2005 Dec 20, 2005 12/20/05
Raymond Chen
Why does Windows setup lay down a new boot sector? Because the alternative is worse. You would expect that after installing an operating system, the operating system should boot. If your boot sector is damaged, say because this is a brand new hard drive with no boot sector, or because it was infected with a boot sector virus, you expect the ...