January 5th, 2016

Why did Windows NT decline to support an undocumented flag to TrackPopupMenuEx?

Commenter kero points out that Windows 95 supported a flag called TPM_SYS­MENU, but Windows NT doesn’t. Why not?

The TPM_SYS­MENU was never documented. It was used internally by Windows 95 for something-or-other, but Windows NT didn’t need to support it, so it didn’t. Since it was an internal flag that was never documented, the Windows NT team were under no obligation to support it, and they chose not to. After all, why go to the extra work of writing code to support a flag that nobody can legitimately be using?

Unsupported flag is unsupported.

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Raymond has been involved in the evolution of Windows for more than 30 years. In 2003, he began a Web site known as The Old New Thing which has grown in popularity far beyond his wildest imagination, a development which still gives him the heebie-jeebies. The Web site spawned a book, coincidentally also titled The Old New Thing (Addison Wesley 2007). He occasionally appears on the Windows Dev Docs Twitter account to tell stories which convey no useful information.

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