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Counting down to the last day of school, as students do it
Today is the last day of school in Seattle public school. My friend the seventh-grade teacher told me that students count down to the last day of school in a rather unusual way. Some people might...
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When the default pushbutton is invoked, the invoke goes to the top-level dialog
One quirk of nested dialogs lies in what happens when the user presses Enter to invoke the default pushbutton: The resulting WM_COMMAND message goes to the top-level dialog, even if the default...
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How did real-mode Windows fix up jumps to functions that got discarded?
In a discussion of how real-mode Windows walked stacks, commenter Matt wonders about fixing jumps in the rest of the code to the discarded functions. I noted in the original article that "there are...
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How does Explorer determine the delay between clicking on an item and...
Ian Boyd wants to know why the specific value of 500ms was chosen as the edit delay in Windows Explorer. Because it's your double-click time. Since the double-click action (execute) is not an...
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Thanks for reminding me what to do when the elevator is out of order
Every few years, the building maintenance people have to perform tests on the elevators to ensure they meet safety regulations. And the real estate department sends out the usual notice informing the...
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How did my hard drive turn into a TARDIS?
A customer observed that the entry for a network drive looked liked this in My Computer, well, except that there was a network drive icon instead of ASCII art. O̝ Public (\\server) (S:) 3.81TB...
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You still need the "safe" functions even if you check string lengths ahead of...
Commenter POKE53280,0 claims, "If one validates parameters before using string functions (which quality programmers should do), the 'safe' functions have no reason to exist." Consider the following...
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How did real-mode Windows patch up return addresses to discarded code segments?
Last week, I described how real-mode Windows fixed up jumps to functions that got discarded. But what about return addresses to functions that got discarded? The naïve solution would be to allocate a...
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2012 mid-year link clearance
Another round of the semi-annual link clearance. Seattle says, "My hometown is better than yours." Chuck Norris fact: Chuck Norris learned how to be awesome from Seattle. What is it like to have an...
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Tracking shortcuts and the early history of multiple monitors
Commenter Roni put two suggestions in the suggestion box in the same entry, which is a problem for me because I feel like I'm forced to answer both of them or neither. The first question suggestion has...
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You already got your answer, why are you re-asking the question?
Today's rant is a blend of two earlier rants: People didn't answer your first email for a reason and If you didn't like the answer, asking the same question again is unlikely to help. A customer...
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The continuing battle between people who offer a service and others who want...
In the history of the Internet, there have been many cases of one company providing a service, and others trying to piggyback off the service through a nonstandard client. The result is usually a...
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How your taskbar auto-hide settings can keep getting overwritten
A customer reported that they were observing that some users were finding their taskbar set to auto-hide even though the standard configuration in the company is for the auto-hide feature to be...
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What are the recommended locations for storing different types of files?
Some time back, I provided informal guidance regarding what types of files go into which folders. Here are the official guidelines [pdf], for those looking for something with more authority than just...
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The physics of a falling Slinky
Professor Ted Bunn (no relation), who still gets email about a Black Holes FAQ he wrote over fifteen years ago, recently blogged about what happens when you suspend a Slinky vertically, then let go....
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Why hasn't the API hook mechanism for x64 been standardized like it was for x86?
Joshua posted to the Suggestion Box, "Around the time of WinXP SP2 x86, the API hook mechanism was standardized. Why wasn't the same thing done for x64?" Who said it was standardized for x86? Hooking...
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Microspeak: radar
The metaphoric use of the term radar is in general use. It refers to the set of things that some entity is paying attention to. (That entity being the owner of the radar.) To fall off the radar is to...
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What does the HTOBJECT hit-test code do?
Leo Davidson observes that a hit-test code is defined for HTOBJECT, but it is not documented, and wonders what's up. #define HTOBJECT 19 The HTOBJECT is another one of those features that never got...
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What happens when you mark a section as DISCARDABLE?
In the flags you pass to the linker, you can specify that a section be made discardable. What does that mean? If you are a kernel-mode driver, the discardable flag means that the contents will be...
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Why doesn't RealGetWindowClass return the real window class for my superclass?
A customer was reporting that the RealGetWindowClass function was not reporting the base window class of their superclass. (Error checking has been elided for expository purposes.) // Get the...
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