October 2010 | Page 3 of 3 | The Old New Thing

Why does TaskDialog return immediately without showing a dialog?

Raymond ChenOctober 7, 2010Oct 7, 201010/7/10

A customer reported a problem with the TaskDialog function. We've encountered a strange behavior in the TaskDialog function. A user reported that when exiting our application, our program played an error beep that didn't appear to be associated with an error. After investigating, we found that the sound is coming from our ...

Wildly popular computer game? The Windows product team has you covered

Raymond ChenOctober 6, 2010Oct 6, 201010/6/10

In Windows 95, the most heavily-tested computer game was DOOM. Not because the testers spent a lot of time developing test plans and test harnesses and automated run-throughs. Nope, it was because it was by far the most popular game the Windows 95 team members played to unwind. It was a huge breakthrough when DOOM finally ran inside...

Secret passages on Microsoft main campus

Raymond ChenOctober 5, 2010Oct 5, 201010/5/10

They aren't really "secret passages" but they are definitely underutilized, and sometimes they provide a useful shortcut. At the northwest corner of Building 50, there are two doors. One leads to a stairwell that takes you to the second floor. That's the one everybody uses. The other door is a service entrance that takes you to the ...

On understanding that getting married comes with changes in lifestyle

Raymond ChenOctober 4, 2010Oct 4, 201010/4/10

A friend of mine who had been married less than a year received a phone call from Adam, one of his still-single friends: "Hey, Joe! Irving and I are going into town, hit some bars, hang out at some clubs, wanna come along?" My friend replied, "Hang on a second." A beat. "Nope. Still married!" As far as I know, Adam and Irving are still ...

Why is the origin at the upper left corner?

Raymond ChenOctober 4, 2010Oct 4, 201010/4/10

Via the Suggestion Box, Dirk Declercq asks why the default client-area coordinate origin is at the upper left corner instead of the lower left corner. (I assume he also intends for the proposed client-area coordinate system to have the y-coordinate increasing as you move towards the top of the screen.) Well, putting the client area origin at...

Which ferry should we take from Germany back to Denmark? Oh, it's this one, except for that one word I don't understand

Raymond ChenOctober 1, 2010Oct 1, 201010/1/10

Writing that entry last Friday reminded me that I never did share my stories of that emergency vacation, save for a cryptic list of learnings. Here's a little story about the ferry crossing. Part of the trip involved driving from Copenhagen (København) to Munich (München), which means taking a ferry. (It's faster than driving ...

Non-psychic debugging: Why you're leaking timers

Raymond ChenOctober 1, 2010Oct 1, 201010/1/10

I was not involved in this debugging puzzle, but I was informed of its conclusions, and I think it illustrates both the process of debugging as well as uncovering a common type of defect. I've written it up in the style of a post-mortem. A user reported that if they press and hold the F2 key for about a minute, our program eventually stops...

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