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One reaction I've seen when people learn about all the compatibility work done in the Windows 95 kernel is to say, Why not add code to the installer wizard [alas, page is now 404] which checks to see if you're installing SimCity and, if so, informs you of a known design flaw, then asks you to visit Electronic Arts' webpage for a patch? ...

The function matches both the short and long names. This can produce somewhat surprising results. For example, if you ask for "*.htm", this also gives you the file "x.html" since its short name is "X~1.HTM". Why does it bother matching short names? Shouldn't it match only long names? After all, only old 16-bit programs use short names. But t...

The edit control style is a holdover from 16-bit Windows. This ancient MSDN article from the Windows 3.1 SDK describes the flag thus: ES_OEMCONVERT causes text entered into the edit control to be converted from ANSI to OEM and then back to ANSI. This ensures proper character conversion when the application calls the AnsiToOem function to conve...

One of the problems beginners run into when they start using shell common controls is that they forget to call the function. But if you were to disassemble the function itself, you'll see that it, like the function, doesn't actually do anything. Then why do you need to call it? As with , what's important is not what it performs, but just ...

Inspired by quantum mechanics.

Danny Glasser explains.

Among the things you can get with the function are two fonts called and . What are they? They are fonts nobody uses any more. Back in the old days of Windows 2.0, the font used for dialog boxes was a bitmap font called System. This is the font that retrieves, and it is still the default dialog box font for compatibility reasons. Of co...

Many Windows information mechanisms are based on message broadcasts, among them DDE, WM_FONTCHANGE, and changes in system settings. Why do these mechanisms use broadcasts, when we know that broadcasts can result in the system grinding to a halt due to windows that have stopped processing messages? Because in 16-bit Windows, you didn't have this...

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 "auto...

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 actually ...