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January 2005 - Posts

Monday, January 31, 2005 7:00 AM

Why did the Win64 team choose the LLP64 model?

To avoid breaking persistence formats.
Posted by oldnewthing | 109 Comments
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Friday, January 28, 2005 10:02 AM

Capturing the current directory from a batch file

The %CD% pseudo-variable does the trick.
Posted by oldnewthing | 36 Comments
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Thursday, January 27, 2005 6:58 AM

Control how much network bandwith Automatic Updates will use

Setting BITS policy.
Posted by oldnewthing | 50 Comments
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Wednesday, January 26, 2005 7:00 AM

The strangest way of rounding down to the nearest quarter

In a previous life, I wrote database software. A customer complained that one of their reports was taking an unacceptably long amount of time to generate, and I was asked to take a look at it even though it wasn't my account. The report was a vacation-days
Posted by oldnewthing | 38 Comments
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Tuesday, January 25, 2005 7:00 AM

Why do files and directories with no time/date mess up sorting in Explorer?

Files and directories with no time/date are often mistaken for so-called "simple" pidls
Posted by oldnewthing | 24 Comments
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Monday, January 24, 2005 7:00 AM

Bringing cryptic command lines to Windows

Windows Services for Unix is available for free download.
Posted by oldnewthing | 46 Comments
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Monday, January 24, 2005 7:00 AM

Alton Brown book appearance report

Alton Brown was in Seattle this afternoon.
Posted by oldnewthing | 18 Comments
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Friday, January 21, 2005 7:00 AM

Why are kernel HANDLEs always a multiple of four?

There are two bits available for you to use.
Posted by oldnewthing | 27 Comments
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Thursday, January 20, 2005 7:01 AM

Hyperlinking to Hutchison Whampoa Limited forbidden

Maybe they don't want people to find them.
Posted by oldnewthing | 48 Comments
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Thursday, January 20, 2005 7:00 AM

A 90-byte "whereis" program

Sometimes people try too hard.
Posted by oldnewthing | 40 Comments
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Wednesday, January 19, 2005 7:00 AM

CreateProcess does not wait for the process to start

All it does is create the process.
Posted by oldnewthing | 16 Comments
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Tuesday, January 18, 2005 7:00 AM

The importance of error code backwards compatibility

Sometimes a program gets really lucky.
Posted by oldnewthing | 83 Comments
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Monday, January 17, 2005 7:00 AM

How did MS-DOS report error codes?

It's the same error code table, but slightly different.
Posted by oldnewthing | 63 Comments
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Friday, January 14, 2005 7:00 AM

Cleaner, more elegant, and harder to recognize

It's not that exceptions are inherent bad, it's that it's hard to code to them and hard to tell that somebody did it right.
Posted by oldnewthing | 115 Comments
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Thursday, January 13, 2005 6:58 AM

User interface design for interior door locks

Why do door lock manufacturers mess up the lock handle design?
Posted by oldnewthing | 75 Comments
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Thursday, January 13, 2005 6:58 AM

User interface design for vending machines - answer to puzzle

Some product code should be avoided.
Posted by oldnewthing | 38 Comments
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Wednesday, January 12, 2005 7:00 AM

User interface design for vending machines

You'd be surprised how many badly-designed vending machines there are.
Posted by oldnewthing | 75 Comments
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Tuesday, January 11, 2005 7:01 AM

Marriage as a cross-branding opportunity

Alas, Jennifer and Brad are kaput. But think of the branding opportinities.
Posted by oldnewthing | 10 Comments
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Tuesday, January 11, 2005 7:00 AM

Why doesn't \\ autocomplete to all the computers on the network?

It used to, but that feature was quickly killed.
Posted by oldnewthing | 63 Comments
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Monday, January 10, 2005 7:01 AM

Seattle Snowstorm 2005 (insert swooshy sound effect)

Snow falls and the city goes berzerk.
Posted by oldnewthing | 50 Comments
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Monday, January 10, 2005 7:00 AM

Taskbar notification balloon tips don't penalize you for being away from the keyboard

The clock doesn't run if you don't appear to be there.
Posted by oldnewthing | 70 Comments
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Friday, January 07, 2005 7:00 AM

How can code that tries to prevent a buffer overflow end up causing one?

What's the deal with those ...ncpy functions anyway?
Posted by oldnewthing | 65 Comments
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Thursday, January 06, 2005 6:58 AM

A rant against flow control macros

It may be easier for you, but it makes it harder for everyone else.
Posted by oldnewthing | 53 Comments
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Wednesday, January 05, 2005 7:01 AM

PulseEvent is fundamentally flawed

Things outside of your control affect its behavior and you can't even detect that it happened.
Posted by oldnewthing | 44 Comments
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Wednesday, January 05, 2005 7:01 AM

You don't need to run away from home to join the circus

At least not if you live in Seattle.
Posted by oldnewthing | 6 Comments
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Tuesday, January 04, 2005 7:00 AM

Using fibers to simplify enumerators, part 5: Composition

Building a new enumerator by combining existing ones.
Posted by oldnewthing | 11 Comments
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Monday, January 03, 2005 7:00 AM

Using fibers to simplify enumerators, part 4: Filtering

Building a new enumerator by filtering an existing one.
Posted by oldnewthing | 1 Comments
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