The Old New Thing

Now that version 4 of the .NET Framework supports in-process side-by-side runtimes, is it now okay to write shell extensions in managed code?

February 22, 2013 Feb 22, 2013 02/22/13
Raymond Chen
Many years ago, I wrote, "Do not write in-process shell extensions in managed code." Since I originally wrote that article, version 4 of the .NET Framework was released, and one of the features of that version is that it supports in-process side-by-side runtimes. Does that mean that it's now okay to write shell extensions in managed code? ...

Isn’t the CompletionKey parameter to CreateIoCompletionPort superfluous?

February 22, 2013 Feb 22, 2013 02/22/13
Raymond Chen
When you associate a file handle with an I/O completion port with the function, you can pass an arbitrary pointer-sized integer called the which will be returned by the function for every I/O that completes against that file handle. But isn't that parameter superfluous? If somebody wanted to associated additional data with a file handle...

What does -1.#IND mean?: A survey of how the Visual C runtime library prints special floating point values

February 21, 2013 Feb 21, 2013 02/21/13
Raymond Chen
As every computer scientist knows, the IEEE floating point format reserves a number of representations for infinity and non-numeric values (collectively known as NaN, short for not a number). If you try to print one of these special values with the Visual C runtime library, you will get a corresponding special result: Positive and ...

You can ask the compiler to answer your calling convention questions

February 20, 2013 Feb 20, 2013 02/20/13
Raymond Chen
If you want to figure out some quirks of a calling convention, you can always ask the compiler to do it for you, on the not unreasonable assumption that the compiler understands calling conventions. "When a __stdcall function returns a large structure by value, there is a hidden first parameter that specifies the address the return value ...

Microspeak: bubble up

February 19, 2013 Feb 19, 2013 02/19/13
Raymond Chen
Bubble up is the name of a soft drink, but at Microsoft, it means something else. (Remember, Microspeak is not just terms used exclusively within Microsoft, but also terms used at Microsoft more often than in the general population.) To bubble up information is to expose the information at a higher reporting level. For example, you might ...

I speak German better in my dream than I do in real life

February 18, 2013 Feb 18, 2013 02/18/13
Raymond Chen
I dreamed that I was at a large trade show, where everybody had cleared the center of the main floor to make room for an impressive real-time holography demo. After the demo was over, everybody moved their chairs back, but the German delegation had difficulty returning their chairs to the exact position they took them from, because everybody...

Debug session: Why is an LPC server not responding?

February 15, 2013 Feb 15, 2013 02/15/13
Raymond Chen
A particular scenario was hanging, and the team responsible for the scenario debugged it to the point where they saw that their X component was waiting for their Y component, which was waiting for Explorer, so they asked for help chasing the hang into Explorer. The team was kind enough to have shared what they've learned so far...