The Old New Thing

Microspeak: Recycling bits or recycling electrons

February 8, 2011 Feb 8, 2011 02/8/11

Raymond Chen

To recycle bits (or recycle electrons) is to take an old piece of email and use it to answer a similar (often identical) question or discussion on a mailing list. This is usually done by simply replying to the thread with the two-word message "Recycling bits" (or "Recycling electrons") and attaching the original email message. An important ...

The cursor isn't associated with a window or a window class; it's associated with a thread group

February 7, 2011 Feb 7, 2011 02/7/11

Raymond Chen

In my earlier discussion of the fact that changing a class property affects all windows of that class, commenters LittleHelper and Norman Diamond wanted to know "Why is the cursor associated with class and not a window?" This is another one of those questions that start off with an invalid assumption. The cursor is not associated with a ...

The 2010 Niney Award nominees have been announced

February 4, 2011 Feb 4, 2011 02/4/11

Raymond Chen

The nominees for the first (annual?) Niney Awards have been announced. The Nineys are an award which recognizes those who have had the greatest impact on the technical/developer community over the past year. Winners are selected by you, the technical/developer community. The winners will be announced at the MIX11 conference in April. But ...

Ready… cancel… wait for it! (part 3)

February 4, 2011 Feb 4, 2011 02/4/11

Raymond Chen

A customer reported that their application was crashing in RPC, and they submitted a sample program which illustrated the same crash as their program. Their sample program was actually based on the AsyncRPC sample client program, which was nice, because it provided a mutually-known starting point. They made quite a few changes to the program...

I am no longer impressed by your fancy new 10,000 BTU hot pot burner

February 3, 2011 Feb 3, 2011 02/3/11

Raymond Chen

Two years ago, we had a gathering at my house for some friends for hot pot, the traditional way of ringing in the lunar new year (which takes place today). It was actually a bit of a cross-cultural event, since the attendees came from different regions of Asia, where different traditions reign. (And the American guests just had to choose ...

Ready… cancel… wait for it! (part 2)

February 3, 2011 Feb 3, 2011 02/3/11

Raymond Chen

A customer had a question about I/O cancellation. They have a pending call with a completion procedure. They then cancel the I/O with and wait for the completion by passing as the parameter to . Assuming both return success, can I assume that my completion procedure will not be called after GetOverlappedResult returns? It appears that ...

Ready… cancel… wait for it! (part 1)

February 2, 2011 Feb 2, 2011 02/2/11

Raymond Chen

One of the cardinal rules of the structure is the structure must remain valid until the I/O completes. The reason is that the structure is manipulated by address rather than by value. The word complete here has a specific technical meaning. It doesn't mean "must remain valid until you are no longer interested in the result of the I/O." ...

There is no longer any pleasure in reading the annual Microsoft injury reports

February 1, 2011 Feb 1, 2011 02/1/11

Raymond Chen

Microsoft is required by law to file reports on employees who have sustained injuries on the job. They are also required to post the reports in a location where employees can see them. These reports come out every year on February 1. Back in the old days, these reports were filled out by hand, and reading them was oddly amusing for the ...

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