A customer reported (all incomplete information and red herrings preserved): We have an issue related to two radio buttons in a window. The code programmatically checks the second button by sending the message. We observe that if the user clicks somewhere else on the screen (so that our application loses focus), and then clicks on the taskbar i...

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Most people know that Windows 95 was code-named Chicago. The subprojects of Windows 95 also had their code names, in part because code names are cool, and in part because these projects were already under way by the time somebody decided to combine them into one giant project. Even when they were separate projects, the first three teams...

Continuing from Creating a simple pidl: For the times you care enough to send the very fake: Instead of creating a simple pidl, we'll create a simple shell item. The idea is the same. We build a file system bind context containing the information about the fake file, and we pass that bind context to the function. Take that program that creat...

Some time ago, I noted that you can build other interlocked operations out of . Here's an example: (There's a corresponding C++ version, which I leave as an exercise.) This function atomically updates a "highest value seen so far" variable. It follows the usual pattern: Capture the starting value. Do a computation based on that value. Comp...

How could it be?

A customer reported a problem showing an icon on their dialog box. We verified that this code does execute during the handling of the message. No assertion fires, yet no icon appears either. Our dialog template says The customer did some helpful preliminary troubleshooting: Verify that the code does indeed execute. It sounds obvio...

Many many years ago, a customer presumably was taking advantage of the unlimited support part of their support contract when they asked In the documentation for Space Cadet Pinball, it says... The game is divided into three levels of play: basic, intermediate, and advanced. The objective of all levels is to achieve the highest point total. The...

Today's Little Program enumerates bit sequences of a particular length subject to the constraint that you cannot have consecutive 0-bits. This may sound kind of arbitrary, but it is important in magnetic media storage, because you cannot go too long without a flux reversal (traditionally represented by a 1); otherwise, the read head's clock start...

Last year, in honor of Mother's Day (the United States version), the John F. Kennedy Library shared a letter sent by President Kennedy to his mother. Mrs. Kennedy had contacted Premier Khrushchev asking for an autographed photo, copies of which were subsequently forwarded to the White House so that the President could sign them as well. President...