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Why does CreateEvent fail with ERROR_PATH_NOT_FOUND if I give it a name with...
A customer reported that the CreateÂEvent function was failing with the unusual error code ERROR_PATH_NOT_FOUND: HANDLE h = CreateEvent(0, FALSE, TRUE, "willy\\wonka"); if (h == NULL) { DWORD dwError...
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Puzzling out the upsell-o-meter
As I noted before, many grocery stores in the United States have a printer next to the cash register which prints out coupons customized to your purchases. Here's a purchase and the accompanying...
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How do I print non-error messages during compilation?
Commenter Worf remarked, "My one wish is that #warning would be supported." I always find it interesting when people say "I wish that Microsoft would stop following standards," since the #warning...
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Keys duplicated from photo: Delayed reaction
There was a report some time ago that researchers have developed a way to duplicate keys given only a photograph. When I read this story, I was reminded of an incident that occurred to a colleague of...
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Why was there a font just for drawing symbols on buttons?
Henke37 wonders why the Marlett font was introduced. Why use a font for drawing symbols on window buttons? Using a font was a convenient way to have scalable graphics. It's not like Windows could've...
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Cultural arbitrage: The food-related sucker bet
While I was at a group dinner at a Chinese restaurant, a whole fish was brought to our table. One of the other people at the table told a story of another time a whole fish was brought to the table....
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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...
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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...
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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...
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How do FILE_FLAG_SEQUENTIAL_SCAN and FILE_FLAG_RANDOM_ACCESS affect how the...
There are two flags you can pass to the CreateÂFile 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...
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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...
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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...
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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...
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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...
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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...
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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...
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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...
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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...
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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...
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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...
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