Clik here to view.
Microspeak: Walls and ladders
Reader laonianren wanted to know more about this game Walls and Ladders. "Walls and Ladders" is not a game. It's just a metaphor for a conflict in which one side wants to perform some action and the...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Don't try to allocate memory until there is only x% free
I have an ongoing conflict with my in-laws. Their concept of the correct amount of food to have in the refrigerator is "more than will comfortably fit." Whenever they come to visit (which is quite...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Why do Microsoft customer records use the abbreviation "cx" for customer?
As is common in many industries, Microsoft customer service records employ abbreviations for many commonly-used words. In the travel industry, for example, pax is used as an abbreviation for...
View ArticleClik here to view.
How do FILE_FLAG_SEQUENTIAL_SCAN and FILE_FLAG_RANDOM_ACCESS affect how the...
There are two flags you can pass to the CreateFile function to provide hints regarding your program's file access pattern. What happens if you pass either of them, or neither? Note that the following...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Can OANOCACHE be used for non-debug purposes?
Friday asks whether OANOCACHE can be used for non-debug purposes, say to improve stability and/or speed. You can try, but it's not recommended. For one thing, it probably damages stability, because...
View ArticleClik here to view.
A single-handed effort to keep the memory of $2 bills alive
As I noted when I told the story of the computer programmer who dabbled in making change that my colleague had a lot of money-related quirks. For some reason my colleague felt the $2 bill deserved...
View ArticleClik here to view.
How do I disable the fault-tolerant heap?
A while back, I linked to a talk by Silviu Calinoiu on the fault-tolerant heap. But what if you don't want the fault-tolerant heap? For example, during program development, you probably want to...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Why doesn't the Windows 7 Start menu have a pushpin for pinning items?
You may have noticed a minor inconsistency between pinning a program to the Start menu and pinning a destination to a program's Jump List. Although pinned items appear at the top of the respective...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The 2012/2013 Seattle Symphony subscription season at a glance
Every year, I put together a little pocket guide to the Seattle Symphony subscription season for my symphony friends to help them decide which ticket package they want. As before, you might find it...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Does mapping the same shared memory two times in a process lead to double the...
A customer designed a system which uses shared memory. Specifically, for each database file, they create a corresponding shared memory block of, say, 200MB. Multiple clients which connect to the same...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Why does it take Task Manager longer to appear when you start it from the...
Amit was curious why it takes longer for Task Manager to appear when you start it from the Ctrl+Alt+Del dialog compared to launching it from the taskbar. Well, you can see the reason right there on...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The Freudian typo that will not die: Enchanced video quality
While wasting time doing valuable background research on my computer, I received the following suggestion: For enchanced video quality, click here. It's good to know that the typo that I first...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Things I've written that have amused other people, Episode 9
A customer liaison reported that their customer wants to be able to access their machine without needing a password. They just want to be able to net use * \\machine\share and be able to access the...
View ArticleClik here to view.
When you are looking for more information, it helps to say what you need the...
It's often the case that when a question from a customer gets filtered through a customer liaison, some context gets lost. (I'm giving the customer the benefit of the doubt here and assuming that it's...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The compatibility constraints of error codes, episode 2
A customer reported an incompatibility in Windows 7: If A: is a floppy drive and they call LoadLibrary("A:\\foo.dll") and there is no disk in the drive, the LoadLibrary call fails with the error...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The story of the mysterious WINA20.386 file
matushorvath was curious about the WINA20.386 file that came with some versions of MS-DOS. The WINA20.386 file predates my involvement, but I was able to find some information on the Internet that...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Microspeak: fit
In Microspeak, fit is a predicate noun which is never used on its own but always comes with a modifying adjective. For something to be a good fit is for something to be appropriate or suitable for a...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The path-searching algorithm is not a backtracking algorithm
Suppose your PATH environment variable looks like this: C:\dir1;\\server\share;C:\dir2 Suppose that you call LoadLibrary("foo.dll") intending to load the library at C:\dir2\foo.dll. If the network...
View ArticleClik here to view.
What is the effect of memory-mapped file access on GetLastError()?
A customer was using memory-mapped files and was looking for information as to whether access to the memory-mapped data modifies the value returned by GetLastError. A member of the kernel team...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Fancy use of exception handling in FormatMessage leads to repeated...
Every so often, somebody "discovers" an alleged security vulnerability in the FormatMessage function. You can try it yourself: #include <windows.h> #include <stdio.h> char buf[2048]; char...
View Article