The Old New Thing
Practical development throughout the evolution of Windows.
Latest posts
What young children do when they hear a foreign language
My young nieces live in a Chinese-speaking household, which is great for them because it means that when they grow up, they will be fluent in two languages. But it makes things a bit tricky at the beginning. The niece who is the subject of this story had just turned two at the time this story takes place, so her language skills even in Chinese are pretty rudimentary. Her language skills in English are restricted to a collection of set phrases like Excuse me!, I'm sorry!, What'you doing?, I want ice cream!, and any catch phrase from the character Dora the Explorer. (I'm also fairly sure she doesn't know what Wha...
Why did the Explore option disappear from the context menu of folders in the second column of the Start menu?
A customer noticed that when you right-click on Computer in the second column of the Start menu on Windows Vista, the first two options are Open and Explore. On the other hand, in Windows 7, the Explore option is gone, leaving just Open. The customer also noticed that in Windows Vista, the two commands had the same effect and wondered if Explore was removed because it was redundant. The response from the product team was a very simple "Yes." It's interesting when a customer notices a relatively insignificant UI change, figures out the likely reason for the change, and then asks for confirmation. ...
Windows 95: It sucks less
An unofficial team motto.
Be careful that your splash screen doesn't squander the foreground love
Commenter Erbi has a program which creates a splash screen on a background thread while the main thread initializes. "I create and then destroy this splash screen window just before creating and displaying the main window." The problem is that the main window fails to obtain foreground activation. Commenting out the code that creates the splash screen fixes the problem, but then there isn't a splash screen any more (obviously). "Is there an explanation for this behavior?" This behavior is explained by two earlier blog posts, plus a PDC talk. The first blog post came out years before this question was asked: The...
Miss France, she has the Eiffel Tower on her head, because France has the Eiffel Tower, and no other country does, so she put it on her head, that's why
Miss Universe 2010 National Costumes, Part 1 Miss Universe 2010 National Costumes, Part 2 Commentary in parts NSFW but they so deserve it.
Why does the primary monitor have (0,0) as its upper left coordinate?
By definition, the primary monitor is the monitor that has (0,0) as its upper left corner. Why can't the primary monitor be positioned somewhere else? Well, sure you could do that, but then you'd have to invent a new name for the monitor whose upper left corner is at (0,0), and then you're back where you started. In other words, it's just a name. You could ask, "Why can't starboard be on the left-hand side of the boat?" Well, sure you could do that, but then you'd have to come up with a new name for the right-hand side of the boat, and then things are pretty much the same as they were, just with different names...
I challenge you to come up with an even lamer physics pun
The other day, I was in the office kitchenette, and two of my colleagues both named Paul happened to be there getting coffee. I quipped, "Oh no, is this legal? I think it's a violation of the Paul Exclusion Principle." It was a horrible physics pun, perhaps one of the worst I've made in a long time. My challenge to you is to come up with an even worse one that you've told. Note: You have to have actually made the pun to an appropriate audience. No fair just making one up for the purpose of the challenge.
How do I get the Explorer navigation pane to highlight the current folder all the time?
In Windows 7, the folder tree in the Explorer navigation pane by default no longer highlights the item in the view pane. This change was based on user testing and feedback, but if, like me, you prefer things the old way, you can play with two new check boxes on the Folder Options dialog. You can get to Folder Options in a variety of ways: However you wind up there, the item you want to turn on is Automatically expand to current folder (or Expand to current folder if you use the super élite method).
Microspeak: The funnel
In the Customer Service and Support part of Microsoft, you will often see the term funnel. Here are some citations: Effectively and efficiently solve issues by driving levers across the entire funnel. Putting the Fun in Funnel. Strengthening the front of the funnel. The funnel is a way of viewing customer support engagements. For some reason, the funnel diagram is always drawn on its side with the mouth (the fat part) on the left and the stem (the narrow part) on the right. The width of the funnel represents the volume of customers at that stage of the support process, and the progress through the funnel r...