Bangs or bells.

Okay, so I explained that a lot of so-called functions are really redirecting macros, function-like macros, intrinsic functions, and inline functions, and consequently, won't actually get anything since the function doesn't exist in the form of an exported function. But why, then, can you for ? Let's take a closer look at the exports from . H...

Occasionally, I'll see people having trouble trying to for functions like or . Usually, it's coming from people who are trying to write p/invoke signatures, for p/invoke does a under the covers. Why can't you for these functions? Because they're not really functions. They're function-like macros: In fact, as you can see above is doubly a...

We're all in the same position. Since we work with computers all day, everybody in the extended family considers us the technical support department. One thing you all need to take away from your role as family technical support department is that normal people view computers completely differently from the way you and I do. One of my relatives ca...

A few random links that I've collected. And then the obligatory plug for my column in TechNet Magazine: And then the obligatory book plug: The electronic-only PDF version is now available for purchase, and it's cheaper than the dead tree edition. (Don't forget that the dead tree edition comes with 45 days of free access to the electronic e...

As a follow-up to the difference between My Documents and Application Data, I'd like to rant about all the subdirectories of My Documents that programs create because they think they're so cool. I'm sure there are more. Everything in the My Documents folder the user should be able to point to and say, "I remember creating that file on such-and...

Academy-award winning actress Linda Hunt reminds newer Oscar-winners, "It's not about you."

Some years ago, a group different from the one I worked in invited me to "volunteer" to help them with serious problems they were having with their product. They asked to "borrow" me for one week so that I could magically resolve all their issues. I wasn't really that familiar with their product, and I certainly didn't know how it worked internall...

The Seattle Times reports that the National Weather Service is inviting suggestions from the public on what to call the recent windstorm. They're baffled because "the storm didn't fall on a holiday." Huh? The storm blew in on the evening of the 14th, but its effects weren't really felt until the morning of the 15th, and the first dark night for ...

The documentation for the function states that the first parameter is a "pointer to the buffer containing the version-information resource returned by the function." Some people, however, decide to bypass this step and pass a pointer to data that was obtained some other way, and then wonder why doesn't work. The documentation says that the fir...