The Old New Thing

How do I get the handle of the primary monitor?

August 9, 2007 Aug 9, 2007 08/9/07
Raymond Chen
The primary monitor by definition has its upper left corner at (0, 0). Therefore, you can use this function: To make double extra sure (belt and suspenders), we also tell it, "If you're not sure what monitor to return, give us the primary." Sure, this sounds obviously simple, but I actually found somebody who fumbled around in the dark ...

Email tip: I don't have my bug numbers memorized

August 8, 2007 Aug 8, 2007 08/8/07
Raymond Chen
Far too often I'll get email like this: From: X Subject: 27183 Have you started looking at this one yet? It may surprise you to learn that I do not memorize all my bug numbers. Please include a brief description of the bug in your message so I have a clue what you're talking about. The bug title is a good start. It's like going to a ...

The truth about 4/29 the government doesn't want you to know

August 6, 2007 Aug 6, 2007 08/6/07
Raymond Chen
With the loss of the Weekly World News, I'll have to rely on the trustworthy Internet to keep me informed of government conspiracies. I happen to be partial to 4/29truth.com, which uncovers the strange coincidences and inconsistencies in the "official" explanation of the tanker crash and fire on April 29, 2007 that destroyed a highway ...

Freudian typo: Enchanced metafiles

August 6, 2007 Aug 6, 2007 08/6/07
Raymond Chen
Back in 1993, there was an internal presentation discussing the various new features that were being added to that fancy new version of Windows that ultimately came to be known as Windows 95. In the GDI section, one of the new features was listed as "Enchanced metafiles". When the slide went up, you could hear the scattered titters of ...

Probably the most expensive Harry Potter viewing I'll ever attend

August 3, 2007 Aug 3, 2007 08/3/07
Raymond Chen
Last week, I arranged to meet a friend downtown to see the latest Harry Potter movie. Traffic across the 520 bridge during the evening rush is always a disaster, so whenever I have to head into the city by myself after work, I usually take the bus, and today is no exception. It is a sunny day, which makes for pleasant weather but horrible ...

It was not one of Explorer's design goals to provide a Turing-complete interface for bulk file renaming

August 3, 2007 Aug 3, 2007 08/3/07
Raymond Chen
Somebody wanted to append an extension to all files in a directory and couldn't find a way to do this type of bulk rename in Explorer. On the other hand, it's pretty simple from the command prompt: The person then asked, "Can we get this and other multi-file operations added to Explorer?" "There should be a way to rename a large number ...