The Old New Thing
Practical development throughout the evolution of Windows.
Latest posts
Using the REFIID/void** pattern for returning COM objects for future-proofing and to avoid problems with dependencies
Suppose you have a function that creates a reference to a COM object: There are a few issues with this design. First of all, it requires that whoever uses...
Why are only some of the Windows 7 system notification icons colorless?
Diminishing returns.
How do I turn off email reminders for my Windows Live calendar, and disable the birthday calendar while I'm at it?
You have to find the right check box.
Customing the standard color-picker dialog
A custom template, or possibly a custom hook function.
Communication between moving vehicles during the narrow window of the late 1990s
The long holiday weekend in the United States means that there are probably going to be a lot of people on road trips. Back in the old days before mobile ...
It rather involved being on the other side of this airtight hatchway: Surreptitious file access by administrator
A security report was received that went something like this: A user can bypass file sharing locks by opening a read-only handle to the physical volume ...
Redirecting the Favorites folder is technically legal, but you wouldn't like it
A customer liaison asked for assistance in debugging why Internet Explorer frequently stops responding at their customer's site. "We have tried a number of ...
What is the default size of the Recycle Bin, and how can an administrator control the size of the Recycle Bin?
A customer was setting up a file server to which they intended to redirect all their employees' documents. They were concerned about the amount of disk space ...
2014 mid-year link clearance
Another round of the semi-annual link clearance. James Mickens section January 2014: This World of Ours I have seen a video called “Gigantic Martian...