The Old New Thing

What is the lpdwHandle parameter in GetFileVersionInfoSize used for?

The function returns two pieces of information. The return value is the amount of memory needed to record the version information of a file, and the pointed to by the parameter is set to zero. What's the deal with this strange parameter? That parameter used to do something. The documentation for used to read dwHandle: The value ...

There's a whole Internet out there, folks, you might want to check it out

If you're going to add a topic to the Suggestion Box,¹ at least do the courtesy of researching the question before asking it. It takes me an hour to answer each question; it's only fair that you spend ten minutes making it a good question. For example, one entry in the Suggestion Box asked for the story behind the hotkey. But even the ...

Don't just grab the foreground window and host UI on it

I was asked to look at an application compatibility bug in a program from a major vendor. But that's actually irrelevant; what I'm writing about today has nothing to do with application compatibility. That's just what drew my attention to the program in the first place. At some point during the install, the setup program encountered an error ...

What is Dave's frame class?

Back in 2004, we lost Dave's frame class. Dave's frame class, or more accurately, DavesFrameClass, was the window class that drew the CPU meter on the Performance page of Task Manager. As you might have guessed, Dave was the name of the original author of Task Manager. (If the checked version of Task Manager from NT 4 encountered an ...