The Old New Thing

Wait, so does moving a file recalculate inherited permissions or doesn't it?

September 24, 2013 Sep 24, 2013 09/24/13

Raymond Chen

A customer had a question about whether moving a file recalculated inherited permissions. They found that on their Windows Server 2008 R2 machine, if they moved a file between directories with different inheritable ACEs, then the security descriptor is recalculated to match the destination folder, if they perform the move from the machine...

How permanent is the "Remove from this list" action on the Start menu?

September 4, 2013 Sep 4, 2013 09/4/13

Raymond Chen

From Windows XP to Windows 7, the Start menu showed the programs it thinks you've run most frequently, by employing a conceptually simple but complicated-in-practice algorithm. You can right-click an item on the menu and select Remove from this list. What exactly does this option do? Does it reset the points back to zero, or does ...

How can I find out which process and user is modifying a file?

August 27, 2013 Aug 27, 2013 08/27/13

Raymond Chen

When troubleshooting a problem, you may discover that a file is being modified that shouldn't, and you figure out would be nice if there were some way of finding out which process is modifying the file (so you can get it to stop). Enter the security auditing system. Every securable object has an associated system access control list (SACL) ...

Adding a confirmation dialog to every drag/drop operation does not solve the problem

August 21, 2013 Aug 21, 2013 08/21/13

Raymond Chen

A customer wanted to know how to enable a confirmation dialog whenever the user inadvertently perform a drag/drop operation in Explorer to move files within a volume. For example, if I have an S drive mapped to \\server\share, I would like to display the confirmation dialog when users inadvertently drag and drop a file or folder within the S ...

Why does Explorer sometimes show my server name in parentheses?

July 31, 2013 Jul 31, 2013 07/31/13

Raymond Chen

A customer wanted to know why Explorer showed one of their servers in the folder list the normal way: ⊞ servername but another server showed up "where the server name is parentheses and the node name is in front." ⊞ nodename (servername) "Where is Explorer getting that information, and why are the two servers showing up ...

Windows 7 no longer tries to guess application size and other information

July 24, 2013 Jul 24, 2013 07/24/13

Raymond Chen

Back in the old days, if an application did not provide information like its Estimated Size or Install Date, then the Add/Remove Programs control panel tried to guess the values by searching your hard drives for files and directories that bore a superficial resemblance to the application. (Note that I use the word drives in the plural. It ...

Why don’t hotkeys for items on my Start menu work when I am in a fullscreen application?

May 28, 2013 May 28, 2013 05/28/13

Raymond Chen

You can set a hotkey on the shortcuts in your Start menu, and Explorer will launch that shortcut when you press the hotkey, but not if you are in a fullscreen application, like when you set Paint into fullscreen mode, or when you are displaying a PowerPoint presentation. Why are shortcut hotkeys ignored when a fullscreen application is running...

How do I get a window back on the screen when it moved far, far away? Windows 7 (and 8) edition

May 22, 2013 May 22, 2013 05/22/13

Raymond Chen

Some time ago, I showed how to get a window back on the screen when it moved far, far away. That technique still works in Windows 7 and 8, but there's an easier shortcut that takes advantage of window arrangement features added in Windows 7. First, you switch to the application by whatever means. Then hit Win+UpArrow to ...

Dangerous setting is dangerous: This is why you shouldn’t turn off write cache buffer flushing

April 16, 2013 Apr 16, 2013 04/16/13

Raymond Chen

Okay, one more time about the Write-caching policy setting. This dialog box takes various forms depending on what version of Windows you are using. Windows XP: Windows Server 2003: Windows Vista: Windows 7 and 8: Notice that the warning text gets more and more scary each time it is updated. It starts out just ...