The Old New Thing

Practical development throughout the evolution of Windows.

Latest posts

When you start talking about numbers as small as 2⁻¹²², you have to start looking more closely at the things you thought were zero
My program for faking debugging demos
Jan 13, 2016
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My program for faking debugging demos

Raymond Chen
Raymond Chen

Looking behind the curtain.

Getting one’s paycheck from some mysterious pile of money
Jan 12, 2016
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Getting one’s paycheck from some mysterious pile of money

Raymond Chen
Raymond Chen

But at least you get to visit the receptionist.

Creating a shell extension that applies only to files with a very specific name
Jan 11, 2016
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Creating a shell extension that applies only to files with a very specific name

Raymond Chen
Raymond Chen

The AppliesTo tag.

The FILE_FLAG_DELETE_ON_CLOSE flag applies to the handle, also known as the file object, which is not the same as the file
Jan 8, 2016
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The FILE_FLAG_DELETE_ON_CLOSE flag applies to the handle, also known as the file object, which is not the same as the file

Raymond Chen
Raymond Chen

The file on disk, the representation of the file, and the reference to the representation of the file.

It rather involved being on the other side of this airtight hatchway: Attacking the system clock
Jan 7, 2016
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It rather involved being on the other side of this airtight hatchway: Attacking the system clock

Raymond Chen
Raymond Chen

Tick.

Why does the mouse cursor jump a few pixels when you right-click on the Start button?
Jan 6, 2016
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Why does the mouse cursor jump a few pixels when you right-click on the Start button?

Raymond Chen
Raymond Chen

To make it easy to click the first item.

Why did Windows NT decline to support an undocumented flag to TrackPopupMenuEx?
Jan 5, 2016
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Why did Windows NT decline to support an undocumented flag to TrackPopupMenuEx?

Raymond Chen
Raymond Chen

Duh.

Slam City with Scottie Pippen (1995): A flashback
Jan 4, 2016
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Slam City with Scottie Pippen (1995): A flashback

Raymond Chen
Raymond Chen

No video? No problem.