Junfeng Zhang's Windows Programming Notes : General

Questions and Suggestions -- July 20th Edition

junfeng — Fri, 20 Jul 2007 18:00:00 GMT

This is the re-occuring post for questions and suggestions.

I will not be able to provide any support beyond the trivial Q&A. For guaranteed quality of support, please contact Microsoft Product Support Service.

Sxstrace for Windows XP and Windows Server 2003

junfeng — Fri, 02 Mar 2007 08:27:00 GMT

I have received question about availability of Sxstrace for Windows XP and Windows Server 2003.

Unfortunately this is not possible. The traces from sxstrace.exe really comes from Sxs.dll. Sxstrace simply tells sxs.dll when to trace, where to log, and then parse the log to a humanly readable form. In order for sxstrace to work in Windows XP and Windows Server 2003, traces have to be added to sxs.dll in those versions. unfortunately at this tage of the life cytle of XP and Server 2003, it is very difficult to make any change to sxs.dll.

Hey, maybe this give you a good reason to upgrade to Vista:)

Questions and suggestions

junfeng — Tue, 05 Dec 2006 21:27:00 GMT

I set the comment limit to 90 days. As a result, the original post for questions and suggestions has expired. This one is just to re-enable that.

Please post any questions or suggestions in this blog.

I have left fusion team. I can still answer questions about fusion and SxS. For feature/change suggestions, you can try Alan Shi, or many of the CLR bloggers.

Thanks for reading.

Title change

junfeng — Fri, 20 Oct 2006 01:09:00 GMT

Laterly, most of my topics have been Win32 stuff. Then I realize that the title "Junfeng Zhang's .Net Framework Notes" makes less sense now.

Effectively now, the title of this blog becomes

Junfeng Zhang's Windows Programming Notes

Thanks for reading.

MSDN Wiki

junfeng — Fri, 08 Sep 2006 23:05:55 GMT

MSDN launched MSDNWiki a while ago

http://msdnwiki.microsoft.com/en-us/mtpswiki/default.aspx

I really like the idea of MSDN Wiki.

An API is rarely just an API. There is an associated history, like the background, the design choices, the limitation, the alternative, usage pattern etc. Unfortunately when an API is documented in MSDN, the context is lost (at most places). The result is misuse the API.

With MSDN Wiki, now I can capture the associated context in my blog, and link it in the MSDN wiki site.

That is exactly what my first contribution to MSDN Wiki is: Link my article on ReflectionOnlyLoad* APIs in MSDN document for Assembly.ReflectionOnlyLoadFrom.

http://msdnwiki.microsoft.com/en-us/mtpswiki/system.reflection.assembly.reflectiononlyloadfrom(VS.80).aspx

I'll contribute more to MSDN Wiki when I get time around.

Mark Russinovich started blogging in technet

junfeng — Thu, 31 Aug 2006 23:26:07 GMT

Just like his blog in sysinternals.com, Mark's technet blog investigates complex problems. He shows the full details of how he approach the problem, how to progress the investigation, and how the culprit is found.

Subscribed.

http://blogs.technet.com/markrussinovich/

Questions and suggestions

junfeng — Wed, 19 Apr 2006 22:00:00 GMT

I set the comment limit to 90 days. As a result, the original post for questions and suggestions has expired. This one is just to re-enable that.

Please post any questions or suggestions in this blog.

Questions and suggestions should related to Fusion and CLR Loader.

For example:

Things in Fusion/CLR that you don't understand, or you feel confusing and requires more detailed explanation.
Things that you feel awkward in the current implementation and you want to see a change in the future.
etc.

Remember, I don't do diagnose. Use newsgroup, MSDN forum, PSS for that.

Thanks for reading.

Most Recent Published Knowledge Base Articles for .NET Framework 2.0 RSS Feed

junfeng — Sun, 16 Apr 2006 18:01:00 GMT

You can subscribe to the following Rss feed for the Most Recent Published Knowledge Base Articles for .NET Framework 2.0.

http://support.microsoft.com/common/rss.aspx?rssid=8291&ln=en-us&msid=f3d8b89477ef884086e4bf71577f69dd

For other Microsoft products, please go to http://support.microsoft.com/selectindex/?target=rss.

Brad Abrams --- API design hall of shame

junfeng — Fri, 18 Nov 2005 20:00:00 GMT

Brad thinks the API AppDomainSetup.ShadowCopyFiles is API design hall of shame.

http://blogs.msdn.com/brada/archive/2005/11/17/494282.aspx

I don't think Brad is fair here. At best, it is just a not-so-well-designed API.

An API to be hall of shame should at least have one of the following problems:

1. An API can never be used.
2. An API that nobody can figure out what it does, nor how to use it.
3. An API that nobody uses (or knows, cares)
4. An API that damage a design completely.

Etc.

AppDomainSetup.ShadowCopyFiles is far from any of those.

Thomas Quinn on Addins

junfeng — Tue, 13 Sep 2005 19:34:00 GMT

Thomas Quinn quietly started his blog on Addins.

http://blogs.msdn.com/tq/default.aspx

Thomas works as an Architect in VSTO (Visual Studio Tools For Office). He worked on the Addin model for Office for long. Now he is also looking to solve the managed Addin problem.

If you care about Addin/Add-in/Plug-in, watch Thomas' blog.

Disclaimer

junfeng — Tue, 17 May 2005 10:45:00 GMT

I want to post something not in the product yet. I don't want people to think that is how we will evolve the system going forward. Thus I am writing this disclaimer. Unless specified otherwise, you should always assume any future post is attached with this disclaimer.

Disclaimer:

These postings are provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.
The content of this site consists personal opinions and do not officially represent my employer's view in anyway.
The thoughts and opinions of the autheor often change.You should not consider out of date posts to reflect the author's current thoughts and opinions.

Questions and suggestions

junfeng — Tue, 19 Apr 2005 18:00:00 GMT

I set the comment limit to 90 days. As a result, the original post for questions and suggestions has expired. This one is just to re-enable that.

Please post any questions or suggestions in this blog.

Questions and suggestions should related to Fusion and CLR Loader.

For example:

Remember, I don't do diagnose. Use newsgroup, MSDN forum, PSS for that.

Thanks for reading.

Questions and Topics Suggestions

junfeng — Wed, 06 Apr 2005 07:52:00 GMT

I keep getting emails from folks.

Most of the time, the questions folks asked are interesting to general audience. Some times I will have a new blog post to answer the question. But often I just hit reply, and missed the chance to share it with everyone.

Thus I create this post.

Please post your questions and topics suggestions in this post.

As always, I will try to answer the questions if I know how to. But I can't promise how soon I will have the answer. If I don't know the answer, I can help you to find the right contact.

[update: clarify my area of expertise]

A reminder, things in this post still apply:

Contact me in email
http://blogs.msdn.com/junfeng/archive/2004/10/07/239113.aspx

Which means, only things related to CLR loader and fusion. And I won't do diagnose for you.

As part of the change, I disabled contact link. Sorry for the inconvenience.

Thanks for reading.

New blogs.msdn.com, new theme, and new comment limit day

junfeng — Sun, 03 Apr 2005 07:14:00 GMT

Blogs.msdn.com is migrated to Community Server v1.0.

As part of the migration, I changed my theme. I hope it is more readable.

The comment limit day is set to 90 days.

Thanks for reading my blog.

Comment moderation

junfeng — Tue, 14 Dec 2004 18:41:00 GMT

Due to comment spam, I turned on comment moderation.

When you post a comment, it won't be shown to public until I approve it.

This sucks. But I have no choice.