December 2008 | The Old New Thing

2008 year-end link clearance

Raymond ChenDecember 31, 2008Dec 31, 200812/31/08

Time for the semi-annual link clearance. Finally, we have the traditional plug for my column in TechNet Magazine...

Crazy or cell phone?

Raymond ChenDecember 30, 2008Dec 30, 200812/30/08

You've seen it, I'm sure. People walking down the street talking to themselves. Crazy or cellphone? What really gets me are the people who wear the headsets even when they aren't talking on the telephone, but rather in anticipation of receiving a telephone call. To those people, I have this to say to you: You're not that important. Get...

Every crash is a potential security vulnerability

Raymond ChenDecember 30, 2008Dec 30, 200812/30/08

Whenever I post about a programming error that can lead to crashes, the security team gets all excited and starts looking for ways to exploit it. For example, when I wrote about the fundamentally flawed DONT_RESOLVE_DLL_REFERENCES flag, the security folks went scouring through the Windows source code looking for anybody who passed that flag...

Undecorating names to see why a function can’t be found

Raymond ChenDecember 29, 2008Dec 29, 200812/29/08

Here's a problem inspired by actual events. When I build my project, it compiles fine, but it fails during the link step with an unresolved external: program.obj : error LNK2001: unresolved external symbol "public: virtual wchar_t const * __thiscall UILibrary::PushButton::GetName(class UILibrary::StringHolder * *)" (?GetName@PushButton@...

Why are all computers shown with a Printers folder even if printer sharing is disabled?

Raymond ChenDecember 26, 2008Dec 26, 200812/26/08

When you visited a computer on the network by typing \\computername into the address bar, Explorer showed you a Printers folder if the computer had printer sharing enabled. But starting in Windows Vista, the Printers folder is shown regardless of whether the remote computer is sharing any printers. Why did this change? Communicating ...

Then again, sometimes the improvement is merely incremental

Raymond ChenDecember 25, 2008Dec 25, 200812/25/08

Several years ago, the security department sent out a company-wide memo: Over the next few months, we will be upgrading the card readers on all of our major campuses. The old card readers show a solid red light when the door is locked, whereas the new card readers show a blinking red light. Aw-right, a blinking light. Now we're cookin' with...

Foiled by my withered hand

Raymond ChenDecember 24, 2008Dec 24, 200812/24/08

A few years ago, some email was sent out to the product team asking for a volunteer hand model to demonstrate how to open the Windows Vista box. Alas, I withdrew myself from consideration due to my withered hand...

Misheard lyrics as applied to Christmas songs

Raymond ChenDecember 23, 2008Dec 23, 200812/23/08

While visiting my young nieces, we sang some Christmas songs, and when it came to sing Toyland, the four-year-old sang it with misheard lyrics: "Toi-let! Toi-let...

Why isn’t there a SendThreadMessage function?

Raymond ChenDecember 23, 2008Dec 23, 200812/23/08

Here's an interesting customer question: Windows has PostMessage and SendMessage. It also has PostThreadMessage but no SendThreadMessage. Why isn't there a SendThreadMessage function? Am I forced to simulate it with an event? What would this imaginary SendThreadMessage function do? Recall that SendMessage delivers the message directly to ...

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