The Old New Thing

Why does the CreateProcess function do autocorrection?

June 23, 2005 Jun 23, 2005 06/23/05

Raymond Chen

Programs that weren't designed to handle long file names would make mistakes like taking the path to the executable and writing it into the registry, unaware that the path might contain a space that needs quoting. (Spaces—while technically legal—were extremely rare in SFN paths.) The CreateProcess function had to decide whether to...

The Date/Time control panel is not a calendar

June 21, 2005 Jun 21, 2005 06/21/05

Raymond Chen

Although many people use the Date/Time control panel to flip through a calendar, that's not what it is for. In fact, if you use it that way, you can create all sorts of havoc! In its original incarnation in Windows 95, the Date/Time control panel changed your date and time. If you clicked through the calendar to see next month, you ...

Why don't control panel programs and property sheets show up in the taskbar?

June 8, 2005 Jun 8, 2005 06/8/05

Raymond Chen

Control panel programs and property sheets don't show up in the taskbar. Why not? As I recall, the explanation was that control panel programs and property sheets aren't applications. They are auxiliary helper windows that assist you with a task, but they aren't a program in their own right. Therefore, they don't get a taskbar button. I've ...

The Microsoft corporate network: 1.7 times worse than hell

May 12, 2005 May 12, 2005 05/12/05

Raymond Chen

Today I'm going to tell a story from 1996. Why? Because I can. One of the tests performed by Windows Hardware Quality Labs (WHQL) was the NCT packet stress test which had the nickname "Hell". The purpose of the test was to flood a network card with an insane number of packets, in order to see how it handled extreme conditions. It uncovered ...

When a program asks you a question and then gets upset if you answer it

March 28, 2005 Mar 28, 2005 03/28/05

Raymond Chen

JeffDav's story of a program that didn't like it when he told it where to install reminded me of another program that we dealt with during Windows 95 development. This was a big-name program developed by one of the biggest-of-the-big name software companies. Let's give this program the imaginary name "LitWare". Its setup program asked ...

Windows are not cheap objects

March 15, 2005 Mar 15, 2005 03/15/05

Raymond Chen

Although Windows is centered around, well, windows, a window itself is not a cheap object. What's more, the tight memory constraints of systems of 1985 forced various design decisions. Let's take for example the design of the list box control. In a modern design, you might design the list box control as accepting a list of child windows, each...

Two brief reminiscences on the Windows XP "Comments?" button

February 25, 2005 Feb 25, 2005 02/25/05

Raymond Chen

In beta versions of Windows XP, there was special code in the window manager to give every window a link in the upper right corner called "Comments?" which if clicked on displayed a dialog that allowed you to submit feedback to Microsoft about that window. Since this was a beta release, there was no anonymity when you submitted feedback...

Why do minimized windows have an apparent size of 160×31?

February 10, 2005 Feb 10, 2005 02/10/05

Raymond Chen

We discussed a few months ago the issue of where windows minimized to before the taskbar was invented. In the modern taskbar world, why do minimized windows have an apparent size of 160x31? The size isn't just apparent. That's really their size. You can see them, for example, if you fire up a program that uses the Multiple Document ...