The Old New Thing

Embarrassing product names created: Windows CE

December 14, 2021 Dec 14, 2021 12/14/21

Raymond Chen

You do all you can, but at the end of the day, it's not yours to control.

How did Windows 3.1’s virtual machine manager get the information to show in the text-mode Alt+Tab switcher?

November 29, 2021 Nov 29, 2021 11/29/21

Raymond Chen

Getting by with a little help from a friend.

The inside story of the outside investigation of SoftRAM 95

November 11, 2021 Nov 11, 2021 11/11/21

Raymond Chen

It had a plan, but didn't quite execute on it.

That time we had a network outage due to unexpected hunter activity

October 19, 2021 Oct 19, 2021 10/19/21

Raymond Chen

Watch where you're pointing that thing.

Why is the main() function always at address 0x00401000 in a simple program?

October 6, 2021 Oct 6, 2021 10/6/21

Raymond Chen

When multiple technical decision add up, literally.

Not from inside the Redmond Reality Distortion Field: Microsoft Streets and Trips support for ferries

October 5, 2021 Oct 5, 2021 10/5/21

Raymond Chen

From somebody else's reality distortion field.

How to sneak the Windows 95 credits screen into the build without anybody noticing

August 24, 2021 Aug 24, 2021 08/24/21

Raymond Chen

Write it in an obscure language.

What’s with all of the references to “dude” in the accessibility header files?

August 18, 2021 Aug 18, 2021 08/18/21

Raymond Chen

A catch phrase from long ago.

Why did the old RAID database use a signed 16-bit integer for its record count? Why not unsigned, or a 32-bit integer?

August 10, 2021 Aug 10, 2021 08/10/21

Raymond Chen

You have to understand decisions in context, and that includes knowing the problem it was trying to solve.

Twitter misdetected the 2011 Build conference keynote as a denial-of-service attack

July 27, 2021 Jul 27, 2021 07/27/21

Raymond Chen

Just a lot of excited developers.