The Old New Thing

Hiding files is not the same as protecting them

An anonymous commenter suggested that we should give up on "hiding protected operating system files". After all, if we "protect operating system files", that should be enough, shouldn't it? Well, except that some files are still hidden even though they are not protected. For example, your encryption keys are fully accessible to you (after ...

The .Default user is not the default user

If you ever gone spelunking in the registry key, you've no doubt found the user named . Who is this guy? Despite its name, the profile for the .Default user is not the default user profile. It's actually the profile for the Local System account and is an alias for . ( is the security identifier for the Local System account.) Consequently, ...

West Bank Story, the movie that sells itself in five seconds

This weekend, I attended an Oscar-watching party, and when the clips from the nominees for Live Action Short Film were run, I was completely won over by West Bank Story. Five seconds of dancing, finger-snapping Jews and Arabs is all I needed. When filling out your Oscar party ballot, "Live Action Short Film" is one of those categories you ...

If you have to ask, you're probably doing something wrong

If you have to ask about various operating system limits, you're probably doing something wrong. If you're nesting windows more than 50 levels deep or nesting menus more than 25 levels deep or creating a dialog box with more than 65535 controls, or nesting tree-view items more than 255 levels deep, then your user interface design is in ...

More Vista wallpapers from Hamad Darwish

Long Zheng does it again. He follows up his interview with Hamad Darwish with a report on what Hamad has been doing lately, as well as links to high resolution versions of the entire Vista wallpaper photo shoot, including photos that didn't make the final cut...

Another retired computer: The Alpha Rawhide

This computer didn't die like the previous one; it merely outlived it usefulness. In its prime, the machine was a force to be reckoned with. It was about the size of a small refrigerator and generated about as much noise as a vacuum cleaner. It contained four, count 'em, four Alpha AXP processors, each running at a mind-boggling 400&...

How hard could it be? Must provide own garage.

A good friend of mine forwarded me this help-wanted ad on CraigsList: Need a programmer to make a Search Engine like Google I'm looking for some Programmer(s) who can help me create a search engine like Google. Only qualified person(s) encouraged to apply. Compensation: no pay Good luck with that...

What does an NMI error mean? (The infamous "Hardware Malfunction")

I promised to talk more about NMI, so here it is. What generates an NMI? What does it mean? The first question is easy to answer but doesn't actually shed much light: Any device can pull the NMI line, and that will generate a non-maskable interrupt. Back in the Windows 95 days, a few really cool people had taken the ball-point pen ...

The politician's fallacy and the politician's apology

I learned this from Yes, Minister. They call it the politician's fallacy: As befits its name, you see it most often in politics, where poorly-thought-out solutions are proposed for urgent problems. But be on the lookout for it in other places, too. You might see somebody falling victim to the politician's fallacy at a business meeting, say...