Clik here to view.
Why are custom properties created on Windows 2000 lost when I view the file...
In Windows 2000, Explorer let you add properties like Summary and Author to nearly any file type. But when you view the files from a machine running Windows XP or later, those properties are lost....
View ArticleClik here to view.
Just for fun: Sample user names in Windows 7
There are a few places in Windows where you are asked to enter your name in order to set up an account. Just for fun, I went through all the localized versions I could find and extracted the sample...
View ArticleClik here to view.
My evil essence revealed
I found it amusing that somebody considered the fact that Microsoft employees can read my queued-up blog entries before the articles are published to be further evidence of Microsoft's evil essence as...
View ArticleClik here to view.
How do I prevent users from pinning my program to the taskbar?
A customer wanted to prevent users from pinning their application to the taskbar. I have an application that is launched as a helper by a main application. Users shouldn't be launching it directly,...
View ArticleClik here to view.
How do I control X-Mouse settings (active window tracking)?
For quite some time, Windows has had a setting officially called active window tracking but which informally goes by the name X-Mouse, because that was the name of the PowerToy which first exposed the...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Swamping the thread pool with work faster than it can drain
This scenarios is real, but details have been changed to protect the guilty. Consider a window showing the top of a multi-page document. The developers found that when the user clicks the down-arrow...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Why do Group Policy settings require me to have a degree in philosophy?
Josh points out that Group Policy settings often employ double-negatives (and what's the difference between turning something off and not configuring it)? Group Policy settings are unusual in that...
View ArticleClik here to view.
You'd think that with the name scratch, people wouldn't expect it to be...
There is a server run by the Windows team called scratch. Its purpose is to act as a file server for storing files temporarily. For example, if you want to send somebody a crash dump, you can copy it...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Microspeak: The planned unplanned outage, and other operations jargon
The Operations group at Microsoft manage the servers which keep the company running. And they have their own jargon which is puzzling to those of us who don't spend all our days in a noisy server...
View ArticleClik here to view.
PE resources must be 4-byte aligned, but that doesn't stop people from trying...
Resources in PE-format files must be stored at offsets which are a multiple of four. This requirement is necessary for platforms which are sensitive to data alignment. That doesn't stop people from...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Generally speaking, if your function fails, you should return a failure code
A customer requested assistance with their shell namespace extension, and the request worked its way to me for resolution. Unhandled exception at 0x76fab89c (shell32.dll) in explorer.exe: 0xC0000005:...
View ArticleClik here to view.
You don't need to steal focus if you can just arrange for someone to give it...
Commenter doesn't matter proposes a scenario where focus-stealing is necessary: There are two applications A and B, Application B exposes an interface, and Application A connects to application B via...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Sufficiently advanced magic is indistinguishable from technology
An informal tradition in a former group was that whenever somebody bought a new car, we all went out to lunch to celebrate, but the person with the new car had to be one of the drivers. During one of...
View ArticleClik here to view.
How do I convert a UTF-8 string to UTF-16 while rejecting illegal sequences?
By default, when you ask MultiByteToWideChar to convert a UTF-8 string to UTF-16 that contains illegal sequences (such as overlong sequences), it will try to muddle through as best as it can. If...
View ArticleClik here to view.
How do I create a right-aligned toolbar button?
I didn't think this was all that common a request, but it came in twice from two different customers, so I guess there are still people creating toolbars, and creating them with right-aligned buttons...
View ArticleClik here to view.
How do I make a window remain visible even when the user selects Show Desktop?
A customer had this question: I'd like to know how to get a window to remain visible, even when the user has selected Show Desktop. Right now, when the user picks Show Desktop, the desktop appears and...
View ArticleClik here to view.
In Windows, the directory is the application bundle
Aaargh! wonders why Windows doesn't just steal the concept of bundles from Apple and package up each application with all its libraries and everything else it needs into a single directory. This is...
View ArticleClik here to view.
See you in Building 109, Conference Room A
We saw some time ago that if somebody invites you to a meeting in Building 7, they are inviting you off campus to take a break from work. If somebody invites you to a meeting in Building 109,...
View ArticleClik here to view.
How to get Windows Media Player to single-step a video
I always forget how to do this, so I'm going to write it down so I can look it up later. When a video is playing, right-click the volume control slider and select Enhancements, then Play speed...
View ArticleClik here to view.
How do I compress files (via NTFS compression) from the command line?
A customer wanted to know whether there was a way to compress files and directories (in the sense of NTFS compression) from a script or from the command line. They knew about the Properties dialog,...
View Article