The Old New Thing

Answering the phone, a classic rookie mistake

October 18, 2005 Oct 18, 2005 10/18/05
Raymond Chen
I had taken yesterday off from work just to take a breather, but I stopped by the office in the morning to pick up my bicycle helmet. (How I managed to leave my bicycle helmet at the office is not important.) My office telephone rang and I answered it. As my colleague Ken described it later, "Ah, classic rookie mistake." The call was from...

Be careful what you name your product group

October 18, 2005 Oct 18, 2005 10/18/05
Raymond Chen
They thought they were so clever when they named the Desktop Applications Division. "And the abbreviation is 'DAD', isn't that cute? Complements the Microsoft Office Manager toolbar (MOM)." And then the troubles started. Shortly after the new product group was formed, everybody in the product group started getting email talking about ...

The undeletable Outlook folder

October 17, 2005 Oct 17, 2005 10/17/05
Raymond Chen
For a while, I've had a few "undeletable Outlook folders". Even after deleting all the messages from them, Outlook just complains when I try to delete them. There was some sort of error message, but of course I didn't read it. The only option was OK, so I clicked it. As I recall, the message said something about "Can't delete because blah ...

The history of the path separator in Japanese and Korean Windows

October 14, 2005 Oct 14, 2005 10/14/05
Raymond Chen
Why is the path separator on Japanese Windows the ¥ character? And why is it the ₩ character on Korean Windows? I've been prodding Michael Kaplan to delve into the history of this quirk, and he finally gave in to my repeated badgering. (Additional discussion on the Korean Won sign, the Japanese Yen sign, and currency symbols in...

Thread affinity of user interface objects, part 5: Object clean-up

October 14, 2005 Oct 14, 2005 10/14/05
Raymond Chen
The window manager and GDI objects as a general rule will automatically destroy objects created by a process when that process terminates. (The window manager also destroys windows when their owner threads exit.) Note, however, that this is a safety net and not an excuse for you to leak resources in your own program with the attitude of "Oh, ...

Newark Liberty International Airport Terminal A travel tips

October 12, 2005 Oct 12, 2005 10/12/05
Raymond Chen
The line for going through the security checkpoint at Terminal A of Newark Liberty International Airport splits into three lines after you get through the ID check. When you get to the decision point, they all look the same, but don't be fooled. ID / 3 ----------------------------------X >>>...

Thread affinity of user interface objects, part 3: Menus, icons, cursors, and accelerator tables

October 12, 2005 Oct 12, 2005 10/12/05
Raymond Chen
The remaining user interface objects in common use are menus, icons, cursors, and accelerator tables. Menus do not have thread affinity. Any thread can use a menu. However, if two threads use a menu, it is the responsibility of those threads to coordinate among themselves how that menu will be used, so that one thread doesn't modify a menu ...

New blog on integrating Groove with Office

October 11, 2005 Oct 11, 2005 10/11/05
Raymond Chen
Andrew Wharton from Groove has started writing about integrating the team and its product with Office. His opening salvo sets the stage and hooked me in for what looks to be an interesting glimpse into life in another division at Microsoft. (Something that is as mysterious to me as it is to you.) In the early days of the Windows division, ...