The Old New Thing

May 2009 - Page 2 of 3 - The Old New Thing

If an event is signaled more than once, are they delivered in the order in which they were signaled?

May 22, 2009 May 22, 2009 05/22/09
Raymond Chen
A customer asked the following question: Is it guaranteed that the events when signaled multiple times on an event object are delivered in the order in which they were signaled? For example, a thread is waiting on the event handle and performs some operation each time it is signaled. The ordering of those operations should be in the same ...

First, try reading the error message: Episode 1

May 21, 2009 May 21, 2009 05/21/09
Raymond Chen
Quite some time ago, a customer had forgotten that they were using an evaluation edition of Windows, and they were awakened one morning with the following error message: The evaluation period for this installation of Windows has expired. This system will shut down in 1 hour. To restore access to this installation of Windows, please upgrade ...

Just letting you know I had to reboot my telephone

May 19, 2009 May 19, 2009 05/19/09
Raymond Chen
Shortly after my group got switched over to new fancy-dancy IP phones, one of my colleagues sent me email to say "This morning, when I picked up the phone, I kept getting a 'URL not allowed' error. I fixed it by rebooting my phone." So this is what the world has come to. Bonus chatter: As many readers surmised, these "new" IP phones ...

How do I know whether a window message was processed?

May 18, 2009 May 18, 2009 05/18/09
Raymond Chen
Commenter Skeets Norquist asks how to tell whether the original window procedure processed a message when you use to call the original window procedure. "CallWindowProc() always seems to return an LRESULT of 0." No, actually, returns whatever the window procedure did. If the window procedure returned zero, then returns zero. If the ...

Imagine our luck when we found one of the fancy conference rooms available for our meeting

May 15, 2009 May 15, 2009 05/15/09
Raymond Chen
Some time ago, the group I was a member of was looking for a conference room in which to hold their weekly team status meeting. The group leader went to the so you want to book a conference room for your weekly meeting internal Web site and, hey wow, there was a slot available in one of the fancy conference rooms for Tuesdays at ten in the ...

Parents billed when kids miss school: Pay for play

May 14, 2009 May 14, 2009 05/14/09
Raymond Chen
The Scotts Valley school system is asking parents to compensate the district when they take their kids out of school to go on vacation. Adds a new wrinkle to the phrase "pay for play". I remember the days when we were taught the difference between the things you must do (obligations, responsibilities) and the things you want to do...

People become more trustworthy the more you trust them

May 13, 2009 May 13, 2009 05/13/09
Raymond Chen
My faith in humanity goes up when I see an unattended self-service stand where customers are trusted to pay for what they take. It works because the system is open to public view, and any passer-by (or even just a poster of a pair of eyes) can spot the cheater. (Then again, it takes only a tiny percentage of cheaters to ruin it for ...