Saving the world, one bug at a time

Switch between registry hives in Windows 10

When working on a product like Windows, it’s hard please everybody – a feature that will be well...

Author: Alexander Sklar Date: 05/20/2015

Windows 10 and File Explorer

It’s been a while since I posted anything so I figured I’d give you all, my good-looking...

Author: Alexander Sklar Date: 11/13/2014

Your app will crash if you try to invoke the setdesktopwallpaper verb

I was building a little app that would take a jpeg file and set it as the user’s wallpaper. I could...

Author: Alexander Sklar Date: 03/29/2014

Adventures in reinterpret_cast

It’s like dialing the wrong number and then going on as if you’re talking to the person...

Author: Alexander Sklar Date: 01/28/2014

Hilarious network configuration

I call this DNS art :) Try running this from a cmd prompt: tracert -h 99 216.81.59.173 You'll get...

Author: Alexander Sklar Date: 02/09/2013

Why does explorer tell me the file was opened by the wrong program?

(or why Windows Audio is holding an Event Log file open) Today’s blog post will be about the “File...

Author: Alexander Sklar Date: 05/03/2012

Why do .zip files from Mac OS show up as green/encrypted?

It’s kind of funny really. The ZIP specification mandates that a program/OS creating a zip...

Author: Alexander Sklar Date: 05/03/2012

Remote Assistance and UAC prompts

Recently, I received some e-mail sent to one of our internal DLs describing an issue a customer is...

Author: Alexander Sklar Date: 03/14/2012

System Tray Notification area icons

If you’re a developer writing for Windows 7, you’ll probably have noticed that icons in the System...

Author: Alexander Sklar Date: 03/06/2012

How do I file a bug for Windows 7?

Ok, so you can’t directly file a bug. Just imagine the number of random noise/issues (“my computer...

Author: Alexander Sklar Date: 03/05/2012

Where did my jump lists go!?!?

If you’ve run into a situation where in Windows 7 or Server 2008 R2, some of your programs’ jump...

Author: Alexander Sklar Date: 11/10/2011

So, what has your team been up to for the last six months?

I know, everybody must be asking themselves this question. Luckily, I can now show you a bit more of...

Author: Alexander Sklar Date: 08/24/2011

How to recover Google Chrome passwords and cookies

If you’re one of the two people in the world that follow my blog (thank you Mom!) then you...

Author: Alexander Sklar Date: 07/15/2011

Windows+X is not really Windows+X

  I recently had to look into a Group Policy called “Turn off Windows+X hotkeys”. Apparently a...

Author: Alexander Sklar Date: 06/29/2011

The process com.htc.bgp has stopped unexpectedly

I recently got an HTC Hero phone (currently running Android 2.1 "Eclair"). Long story short, I...

Author: Alexander Sklar Date: 10/18/2010

Getting the Printer Friendly name from the Device Center shell folder

If you are writing a context menu for the device center, you will probably need to get the...

Author: Alexander Sklar Date: 10/21/2009

New Windows 7 Advertisement unveiled at today's Company Meeting

Kylie Good News (I call it "More Happy is coming")

Author: Alexander Sklar Date: 09/11/2009

The case of the very annoying hpqtra08.exe

I recently bought an HP dv7t laptop and also got one of those HP multi-function printers. So far so...

Author: Alexander Sklar Date: 02/03/2009

Servicing Dependencies, Part 2

Now what happens if the dependency is not with respect to a regular API, but with a COM interface ?...

Author: Alexander Sklar Date: 01/12/2009

Servicing Dependencies, Part 1

Suppose you have a huge product (such as Windows) for which fix bugs daily. These fixes need to ship...

Author: Alexander Sklar Date: 01/12/2009

Windows 7 beta is available!!

The Windows 7 beta is available for download, but only for the first 2.5 million users, so act...

Author: Alexander Sklar Date: 01/09/2009

Hello w0rld�

The purpose of this blog is to write about my work as a developer in the Windows Serviceability...

Author: Alexander Sklar Date: 01/02/2009