The Old New Thing

December 2007 - Page 4 of 4 - The Old New Thing

Am I for real or just a robot? part 2

December 6, 2007 Dec 6, 2007 12/6/07
Raymond Chen
Some time ago, somebody clicked the "Contact me" link in the navigation bar, and despite the warnings, asked a technical question. I responded, "If you have a question you can post it to the suggestion box." The reply: Please, don't use a bot which pretends to be you to answer e-mails. Especially such a poorly-designed one. Maybe those ...

Welcome to the Microsoft email culture

December 5, 2007 Dec 5, 2007 12/5/07
Raymond Chen
For good or ill, email is the most heavily used communication system at Microsoft, so much so that most people at Microsoft are known by their email addresses, sometimes more so than by their legal names! For example, most everybody at Microsoft knows Stephen Toulouse by his email address, "stepto" (pronounced as if it were spelled "steptoe...

Would a team of midgets be the greatest offense in baseball history?

December 4, 2007 Dec 4, 2007 12/4/07
Raymond Chen
Todd Gallagher answers the weird sports questions you always wondered but knew were too stupid even to ask. Think of it as the sports version of Mythbusters. Well, he sort of gives away the answer to the last question in the title of his book, Andy Roddick Beat Me with a Frying Pan. The stories behind how he set about finding the ...

How long does it take to create a 16TB file?

December 4, 2007 Dec 4, 2007 12/4/07
Raymond Chen
Although the theoretical maximum file size on NTFS is 264−1 clusters, the current implementation of the NTFS driver supports files up to "only" 16TB minus 64KB. (In other words, the disk format supports files up to 264−1 clusters, but the current drivers won't go above 16TB−64KB.) Back in 2002, in order to verify that the ...

How do 16-bit programs start up?

December 3, 2007 Dec 3, 2007 12/3/07
Raymond Chen
Back in 16-bit Windows, MS-DOS cast a long and dark shadow. The really ugly low-level munging was very much in the MS-DOS spirit. You opened files by setting up registers and issuing an , just like in MS-DOS. Although the interrupt went to Windows instead, Windows maintained the MS-DOS calling convention. Process startup followed the same "...