The App Compat Guy

Every now and again, I bump up against a setup application (it's almost always a setup application) that tries to drop older versions of protected operating system files. It's fairly easy to mitigate, but I thought I would go through some of the mechanics...

A question came up today: Are any event logs produced when you run an application with applied shims? I've tried different variations of shims trying to get the desired results with no luck. It's probably UE, but I can't tell if the shims are erroring...

I received one comment on my recent blog post on copying from the system shim database, which I think is worthy of discussion as I have heard similar questions before: I have found previously (under Windows XP, haven't attempted under Vista) that some...

I received a request to talk about a particular shim. And yes, I received that request over a month ago, so ... sorry about that. Nonetheless, I've managed to scratch out a little niche of time to discuss the shim: OpenDirectoryAcl Yep, this does exactly...

A comment came up on a recent posting regarding modules, inquiring about processes. Specifically: Do these included/excluded modules have to be in the same process, or can they include other processes too? (I have an application that calls multiple child...

I hear about a bug now and again with Compatibility Administrator [CompatAdmin]. It always surprises me when I hear about the bug, because you can only hit it if you are trying to do something that there is no point in doing (which is why we never caught...

A question came up in the comments of one of my posts, and I think the answer is important enough to elevate to more than just another comment (and I didn't even answer completely in that quick response). When you are configuring a shim and press the...

It seems that everywhere I turn, the computer press keeps implying that the only people who leave UAC turned on are people who don't really understand computers. In June 2008, for example, it's #6 on their list of tips (page 64 in the print edition):...

Every now and then, I see email sent to a discussion list that includes something like the following: "Please use Reply to All I am not a member of this discussion group." And sometimes you see something like this instead: "Please little-R, I am not a...

I had a bit of a bummer morning back at MMS 2008 . I woke up early (fortunately the conference was in Pacific and my body was in Central, so it was less torturous than getting up early normally is for me) and went down to get set up nice and early. I...

The new phone books are here! The new phone books are here! Does my geekiness have no bounds? (Apparently not.) Now I just need to find somebody who has WNDPROC plates... Regardless, you can't possibly have forgotten (since I am compelled to remind you...

I am just finishing up some prep work on my decks, so I guess it's time to start evangelizing the next big public event I'm fortunate enough to participate in: TechEd 2008 IT Professionals . I'm delivering one session on project management (I'm looking...