The Old New Thing

Tips/Support - The Old New Thing

The Start menu pin list is just a list of items; there’s no magic

April 27, 2009 Apr 27, 2009 04/27/09
Raymond Chen
Commenter Kevin Dente asks, "Is it possible to put a folder on the Start Menu Pin list and have it cascade?" No. The last time I checked (which was back in Windows XP), the Start menu pin list was a list, not a menu. (Specifically, a list view in tile mode.) When you click on the icon, it launches. There is no code to say "Oh, if this ...

When people ask to disable drag and drop, they often are trying to disable accidental drag and drop

April 10, 2009 Apr 10, 2009 04/10/09
Raymond Chen
We occasionally get customers who ask, "How do I disable drag and drop?" This is an odd request, so we ask the frequent follow-up question, "What are you really trying to do?" For many of these customers, the answer goes something like this: We've found that our employees often accidentally move or copy items around on the desktop and in ...

Double secret auto-arrange probation

March 24, 2009 Mar 24, 2009 03/24/09
Raymond Chen
When you view a folder for the first time, Explorer arranges the items in a nice default pattern. And when items are added to the folder, they get added to the end. And when you delete an item from the folder... the other items auto-arrange to close the gap? But wait, if you look at the View options, the Auto-Arrange option is not set. So ...

Why don’t the favorites I copy into the common Favorites directory show up in the Favorites menu of all users?

March 10, 2009 Mar 10, 2009 03/10/09
Raymond Chen
The Favorites menu in Internet Explorer shows the user's favorites. And stuff in the is visible to all users. Therefore, Internet shortcuts placed into the directory should show up on the Favorites menu of all users, right? So why doesn't it work? Because features don't exist by default. It's true that there are a few highly-visible ...

Why do my file properties sometimes show an Archive check box and sometimes an Advanced button?

February 19, 2009 Feb 19, 2009 02/19/09
Raymond Chen
When you view the properties of a file and go to the General page, there are some check boxes at the bottom for file attributes. There's one for Read-only and one for Hidden, and then it gets weird. Sometimes you get Archive and sometimes you get an Advanced button. What controls which one you get? It depends on whether there is anything ...

What does the COM Surrogate do and why does it always stop working?

February 12, 2009 Feb 12, 2009 02/12/09
Raymond Chen
The process goes by the name COM Surrogate and the only time you're likely even to notice its existence is when it crashes and you get the message COM Surrogate has stopped working. What is this COM Surrogate and why does it keep crashing? The COM Surrogate is a fancy name for Sacrificial process for a COM object that is run outside of the ...

Why can’t I see all of the 4GB of RAM in my machine?, redux

January 27, 2009 Jan 27, 2009 01/27/09
Raymond Chen
Phil Taylor gives another few reasons why machine with 4GB of RAM doesn't show up as such. (Here's my earlier posting on this subject, for reference.) These articles about possible reasons for memory not showing up are not intended to be comprehensive. It is entirely possible that the problem you are experiencing is not one described ...