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The Old New Thing
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    The Old New Thing

    January 2011 - The Old New Thing

    Solutions that require a time machine: Making applications which require compatibility behaviors crash so the developers will fix their bug before they ship
    Solutions that require a time machine: Making applications which require compatibility behaviors crash so the developers will fix their bug before they ship
    January 31, 2011 Jan 31, 2011 01/31/11
    Raymond Chen
    A while ago, I mentioned that there are many applications that rely on WM_PAINT messages being delivered even if there is nothing to paint because they put business logic inside their WM_PAINT handler. As a result, Windows sends them dummy WM_PAINT messages. Jerry Pisk opines, Thanks to the Windows team going out of their way not to break ...

    Comments are closed.0Other
    Some remarks on VirtualAlloc and MEM_LARGE_PAGES
    Some remarks on VirtualAlloc and MEM_LARGE_PAGES
    January 28, 2011 Jan 28, 2011 01/28/11
    Raymond Chen
    Large pages are a special feature for dedicated server processes.

    Comments are closed.0Code
    How do you obtain the icon for a shortcut without the shortcut overlay?
    How do you obtain the icon for a shortcut without the shortcut overlay?
    January 27, 2011 Jan 27, 2011 01/27/11
    Raymond Chen
    The easy one-stop-shopping way to get the icon for a file is to use the SHGet­File­Info function with the SHGFI_ICON flag. One quirk of the SHGet­File­Info function is that if you pass the path to a shortcut file, it will always place the shortcut overlay on the icon, regardless of whether you passed the SHGFI_ADD­OVERLAYS...

    Comments are closed.0Code
    Microspeak: Leverage
    Microspeak: Leverage
    January 26, 2011 Jan 26, 2011 01/26/11
    Raymond Chen
    At Microsoft, leverage is not a term of physics whereby a force can be magnified by the application of mechanical advantage. It is also not a term of finance whereby the power of a small amount of money can be magnified by the assumption of debt. In fact, at Microsoft, the word leverage isn't even a noun. It is a verb: to leverage, leverages, ...

    Comments are closed.0MicrospeakNon-Computer
    Why does the name of my TEMP directory keep changing?
    Why does the name of my TEMP directory keep changing?
    January 25, 2011 Jan 25, 2011 01/25/11
    Raymond Chen
    A customer liaison contacted the shell team with the following request: Subject: Support case: 069314718055994 On two of my customer's machines, he's finding that if he opens %TEMP% from the Start menu, it opens C:\Users\username\AppData\Local\Temp\1, C:\Users\username\AppData\Local\Temp\2, and so on. Each time the user logs off and back on...

    Comments are closed.0Tips/Support
    There's a default implementation for WM_SETREDRAW, but you might be able to do better
    There's a default implementation for WM_SETREDRAW, but you might be able to do better
    January 24, 2011 Jan 24, 2011 01/24/11
    Raymond Chen
    If your window doesn't have a handler for the WM_SET­REDRAW message, then Def­Window­Proc will give you a default implementation which suppresses WM_PAINT messages for your window when redraw is disabled, and re-enables WM_PAINT (and triggers a full repaint) when redraw is re-enabled. (This is internally accomplished by making the...

    Comments are closed.0Code
    The 2011/2012 Seattle Symphony subscription season at a glance
    The 2011/2012 Seattle Symphony subscription season at a glance
    January 21, 2011 Jan 21, 2011 01/21/11
    Raymond Chen
    Every year, I put together a little pocket guide to the Seattle Symphony subscription season for my symphony friends to help them decide which ticket package they want. As before, you might find it helpful, you might not, but either way, you're going to have to suffer through it. Here's the at-a-glance season guide for the first season ...

    Comments are closed.0Non-Computer
    Modality, part 9: Setting the correct owner for modal UI, practical exam
    Modality, part 9: Setting the correct owner for modal UI, practical exam
    January 21, 2011 Jan 21, 2011 01/21/11
    Raymond Chen
    Here's a question that came from a customer. You can answer it yourself based on what you know about modal UI. (If you're kind of rusty on the topic, you can catch up here.) I've left in some irrelevant details just to make things interesting. Our program launches a helper program to display an Aero Wizard to guide the user through ...

    Comments are closed.0Code
    How to turn off the exception handler that COM "helpfully" wraps around your server
    How to turn off the exception handler that COM "helpfully" wraps around your server
    January 20, 2011 Jan 20, 2011 01/20/11
    Raymond Chen
    Historically, COM placed a giant try/except around your server's methods. If your server encountered what would normally be an unhandled exception, the giant try/except would catch it and turn it into the error RPC_E_SERVERFAULT. It then marked the exception as handled, so that the server remained running, thereby "improving robustness by ...

    Comments are closed.0Code
    Why didn't they use the Space Shuttle to rescue the Apollo 13 astronauts?
    Why didn't they use the Space Shuttle to rescue the Apollo 13 astronauts?
    January 19, 2011 Jan 19, 2011 01/19/11
    Raymond Chen
    Many decisions make sense only in the context of history. Much like the moviegoers who were puzzled why NASA didn't just use the Space Shuttle to rescue the Apollo 13 astronauts, computer users of today, when looking back on historical decisions, often make assumptions based on technology that didn't exist. Consider, for example, pointing ...

    Comments are closed.0History
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