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    The Old New Thing

    March 2017 | The Old New Thing

    A survey of the various ways of creating GDI bitmaps with predefined data
    A survey of the various ways of creating GDI bitmaps with predefined data
    Raymond Chen Raymond Chen March 31, 2017 Mar 31, 2017 03/31/17
    Suppose you have a buffer full of pixels and you want to create a GDI bitmap that contains those pixels. We'll start with the Create­Bitmap function. This creates a device-dependent bitmap with the pixels you provide. The weird thing about this function is that it's a device-dependent bitmap, but there's no parameter that specifies the ...

    Comments are closed.0Code
    For sale: One TARDIS, working (lights), you must pick up from Vancouver
    For sale: One TARDIS, working (lights), you must pick up from Vancouver
    Raymond Chen Raymond Chen March 30, 2017 Mar 30, 2017 03/30/17
    Ever wanted a full-size TARDIS that works? Well, at least the the lights work. For sale: TARDIS - FULL SIZE - $2500 (191 Alexander Street, Vancouver, BC, Canada) condition: excellent size / dimensions: approx 4x4 7 ft tall CALLING ALL DR. WHO FANS! WE have a full size, working (as in lighted, not time portal) Tardis that was used as...

    Comments are closed.0Non-Computer
    The gradual erosion of the SEM_NOOPENFILEERRORBOX error mode
    The gradual erosion of the SEM_NOOPENFILEERRORBOX error mode
    Raymond Chen Raymond Chen March 30, 2017 Mar 30, 2017 03/30/17
    The SEM_NO­OPEN­FILE­ERROR­BOX flag has a long history. It goes back to 16-bit Windows and the way modules were loaded from floppy disks. If the loader could not find the file it needed, it prompted you to insert the disk and gave you the option to retry or cancel. The SEM_NO­OPEN­FILE­ERROR­BOX flag lets you ...

    Comments are closed.0CodeHistory
    A brief discussion on how best to respond to the end-session messages
    A brief discussion on how best to respond to the end-session messages
    Raymond Chen Raymond Chen March 29, 2017 Mar 29, 2017 03/29/17
    A customer discovered that their application's shutdown code sometimes deadlocked. To address the problem, they moved the bulk of their shutdown code to the WM_END­SESSION message handler. The customer found my earlier discussion of the WM_END­SESSION message and wondered if they were doing the right thing. Yes, it's okay to do ...

    Comments are closed.0Code
    Explorer is a single-instance application, but you can find other ways to get the effect of running a separate instance
    Explorer is a single-instance application, but you can find other ways to get the effect of running a separate instance
    Raymond Chen Raymond Chen March 28, 2017 Mar 28, 2017 03/28/17
    Explorer is a single-instance application, which means that if you try to elevate it, or if you try to run the 32-bit version on a 64-bit system, you don't actually get an elevated Explorer or a 32-bit Explorer, because the second instance hands the request to the existing instance. This is a problem if, say, you have an old shell extension ...

    Comments are closed.0Tips/Support
    How real-mode Windows loaded code from the disk, and how you could use that to minimize disk swapping
    How real-mode Windows loaded code from the disk, and how you could use that to minimize disk swapping
    Raymond Chen Raymond Chen March 27, 2017 Mar 27, 2017 03/27/17
    Real-mode Windows was originally designed to run on a PC with 192KB of RAM and two 360KB floppy drives. We saw some time ago that code was loaded dynamically off the disk on demand. The same principle also applies to read-only data, like resources. Now, you might not have enough disk space on two floppies to hold the core operating system ...

    Comments are closed.0History
    When you submit a security vulnerability report, we go the extra mile and try to fix your typos
    When you submit a security vulnerability report, we go the extra mile and try to fix your typos
    Raymond Chen Raymond Chen March 24, 2017 Mar 24, 2017 03/24/17
    A security vulnerability report arrived that went like this: Even though all access has been revoked to the two files, the following program deletes C:\Folder\foo: From reading this page, it seems that file deletion is related to the control on the file itself and not on the parent folder. And anyway, both have the same rights. There...

    Comments are closed.0Other
    Responses to various ideas on how to get people to stop using that leaked build
    Responses to various ideas on how to get people to stop using that leaked build
    Raymond Chen Raymond Chen March 23, 2017 Mar 23, 2017 03/23/17
    Some time ago, I told the story of how we used psychology to get people to stop using a leaked build and upgrade to a newer build. People had suggestsions for other ways this could have been done. One suggestion to avoid the problem in the first place was to have internal builds refuse to activate from an IP address that is not assigned ot ...

    Comments are closed.0Other
    You can peek to see whether your delay-loaded function loaded successfully
    You can peek to see whether your delay-loaded function loaded successfully
    Raymond Chen Raymond Chen March 22, 2017 Mar 22, 2017 03/22/17
    The Query­Optional­Delay­Loaded­API function lets you ask whether a function marked as delay-loaded was in fact found. Here's a tiny demonstration: This gives you function-by-function granularity on checking whether a delay-loaded function was successfully loaded, which is an improvement over being told whether all the imports...

    Comments are closed.0Code
    Why does the volume control let me set the volume only to even numbers?
    Why does the volume control let me set the volume only to even numbers?
    Raymond Chen Raymond Chen March 21, 2017 Mar 21, 2017 03/21/17
    When you use the hardware button or the dedicated multimedia keyboard button to increase or decrease the volume, the resulting volume is always an even number. If the volume was 22 and you increase the volume, it goes up to 24. But if the volume was 21 and you increase the volume, it also goes up to 24. Why can't it set the volume to an odd ...

    Comments are closed.0Tips/Support
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