The Old New Thing

August 2012 - Page 2 of 3 - The Old New Thing

How do I customize how my application windows are grouped in the Taskbar?

August 20, 2012 Aug 20, 2012 08/20/12
Raymond Chen
Benjamin Smedberg wants to know how to customize the icon used in the Taskbar for applications that are grouped, when the application is a runtime for multiple applications. (This is the other scenario I hinted at last time.) Actually, customizing the icon is only part of what you want to happen when your application is a runtime. In that...

My colleague picked a good day to go out and catch a baseball game

August 17, 2012 Aug 17, 2012 08/17/12
Raymond Chen
I ran into one of my colleagues at the coffee stand and asked him how things were going. He said that Wednesday was his wife's birthday, and he asked her if she wanted to do anything special. "Let's catch a baseball game," she suggested. So off they went to watch a baseball game. Turns out they chose a good game to watch: Seattle Mariners ...

What if my application is really two applications bundled into a single file, and I want them collected into two groups on the taskbar in Windows 7?

August 17, 2012 Aug 17, 2012 08/17/12
Raymond Chen
A customer wanted to prevent multiple copies of their program from being grouped on the taskbar. They didn't give an explanation why, but let's assume that they are doing this for honorable purposes rather than as a way to annoy the user. For example, maybe their program is really multiple applications bundled inside a single EXE file for ...

What happened to the Windows 2000 "Set default language setting for the system" button?

August 16, 2012 Aug 16, 2012 08/16/12
Raymond Chen
Last time, we looked at the evolution of the control panel settings which control the language groups for which Windows will install fonts, code page information, and other support collateral. This was in the context of a customer who was trying to migrate from Windows 2000 to Windows XP, and the customer wanted to convert their workflow...

How long does it take for a notification icon to stop appearing in the Notification Area Icons control panel?

August 14, 2012 Aug 14, 2012 08/14/12
Raymond Chen
A customer reported that even after uninstalling their application, the notification icon entry remains in the Notification Area Icons control panel. Yup, that's right. Explorer remembers the icon, even after the underlying program has been uninstalled, because you might have uninstalled it with the intention of immediately reinstalling it, ...

Why am I in the Quake credits?

August 13, 2012 Aug 13, 2012 08/13/12
Raymond Chen
Anon wants to know why I am listed in the credits for the video game Quake under the "Special Thanks" section. "Were you an early tester/debugger?" I've never played a game of Quake in my entire life. I (and most of the rest of the Windows 95 team) played DOOM, but after a while, first-person-shooter games started giving me a headache...

What is SysFader and why is it always crashing?

August 9, 2012 Aug 9, 2012 08/9/12
Raymond Chen
If you type SysFader into your favorite search engine, you'll find lots of hits from people asking, "What is SysFader, and why is it always crashing Internet Explorer?" The exception unknown software exception (0xe06d7363) occurred in the application at location 0x7c812afb. OK Cancel ...