Raymond Chen: TechNet Magazine Articles

TechNet Magazine

Home

Raymond Chen

Windows Confidential: How Betas Became RCs
Raymond Chen discusses the intriguing backstory of how naming conventions for non-final releases have changed. And he gives a gentle plea for companies to take beta testing more seriously.
Raymond Chen - March 2008
Windows Confidential: Scrapping the Scraps
Here's some history about how a couple of not so incredibly popular features disappeared.
Raymond Chen - February 2008
Windows Confidential: Remind Me Never to Do That Again
Hardware detection in the days before proper Plug and Play devices was a very scary undertaking. Find out why.
Raymond Chen - January 2008
Windows Confidential: A Joystick Need Not Be a Microwave
A look at how the DirectInput force feedback joystick interface specifies periodic forces—and some of the unexpected results.
Raymond Chen - December 2007
Windows Confidential: The File System Paradox
Ever wonder why you need a miniature file system driver built into those critical boot files?
Raymond Chen - November 2007
Windows Confidential: Calling Dr. Watson
Why does using Dr. Watson to take a memory dump of Winlogon bring down the entire system? This isn’t an accident. Explore the world of Task Manager and critical system files to find out why.
Raymond Chen - October 2007
Windows Confidential: The Known DLLs Balancing Act
The Known DLLs feature was included in Windows as a way to improve performance. Find out how it works, and take a close look at how this feature has changed over time.
Raymond Chen - September 2007
Windows Confidential: Windows Explorer Doesn't Do Text
Why can't you copy a list of files in Windows Explorer and then paste them as text to get their file names? The Windows team tried to include this functionality, but it didn't work as planned.
Raymond Chen - August 2007
Windows Confidential: The Healing Powers of Safe Mode
Did you know that besides disabling drivers, Windows safe mode repairs problems that can be repaired automatically? Find out why?
Raymond Chen - July 2007
Windows Confidential: What New Users See on the Start Menu
Imagine buying a new computer, firing up Windows, clicking the Start button, and seeing a blank menu. There's a reason why the Start menu includes applications in the most frequently used spot before you've used anything--to provide a good out-of-box experience. Find out how these apps are chosen.
Raymond Chen - June 2007
Windows Confidential: Determining What Is Frequently Used
How does Windows determine the list of frequently used programs that appears on the Start menu? The concept started with a simple premise that soon required a lot of fine tuning. Here’s an inside look at the logic behind the design of this feature.
Raymond Chen - May 2007
Windows Confidential: The Power of Bugs
Why would you want to turn on a bug? Some applications actually rely on a bug in the OS. When the bug is fixed, the app breaks.
Raymond Chen - April 2007
Windows Confidential: Looking Smart by Being Stupid
Why did Windows forget your autoplay settings? It didn't. Sometimes the safest action is to take no action.
Raymond Chen - March 2007
Windows Confidential: A "Mixed" Blessing
Raymond Chen - February 2007
Windows Confidential: Getting Out of DLL Hell
Raymond Chen - January 2007
Windows Confidential: Waiting for RunOnce
CONSIDER AN installation that needs to restart the system in the midst of the process. For example, the program might wish to upgrade a system DLL that is currently in use. You would need to trigger an intervening reboot to get the new DLL file installed, and then after the DLL has been upgraded, you could use it in the next stage of the installation.
Raymond Chen - December 2006
Windows Confidential: Handling Compatibility Hacks
What should Windows do when a program is so incompatible with Windows that it cannot run at all or that it runs with severe limitations? The current versions of Windows only display a warning dialog. Here's why.
Raymond Chen - November 2006
Windows Confidential: Compatibility Constraints
Raymond Chen - October 2006
Windows Confidential: Why are Shortcuts Files?
Raymond Chen - September 2006
Windows Confidential: A Directory by Any Other Name
Raymond Chen - August 2006
Windows Confidential: A Brief and Incomplete History of FAT32
Why did classic Windows 95 limit local hard drives to 2GB? Some people would lead you to believe that the FAT file system team said, "Y’know, the FAT file system supports hard drives of indefinite size, but let’s impose an artificial cap just to make people’s lives more frustrating.
Raymond Chen - July 2006
Windows Confidential: The Intranet Can Be a Scary Place
If you’ve installed Windows Server™ 2003, you’ve probably discovered that Microsoft® Internet Explorer® doesn’t behave quite the same as it used to. You get prompted for your domain password more often, script doesn’t run, downloading from Web Folders is blocked—it’s just not fun.
Raymond Chen - May • June 2006
Windows Confidential: An Administrator Is Not the Administrator
I came across a report from a user who was trying to set the owner of a file to "Administrator. " The user was unable to do this even though he was logged on as an administrator. Why won’t the system let an administrator change the owner of a file to Administrator? Don’t administrators have permission to take ownership of files?.
Raymond Chen - March • April 2006
Windows Confidential: The Resourcefulness of Annoying People
Windows isn’t as open as it used to be. In the earlier, simpler days, Windows® was designed in a more trusting manner. Internal file formats were documented, and programs could manipulate the system in a wide variety of ways.
Raymond Chen - January • February 2006
Windows Confidential: The Sad Story of the Shell Folders Key
It’s a little known fact that the Shell Folders key exists solely to permit four programs written in 1994 to continue running on the RTM version of Windows® 95.
Raymond Chen - November • December 2005
Windows Confidential: Share and Share Alike
"Are you sure you want to remove this shared file?" Raymond Chen explains why an uninstaller may ask this question when you remove a program.
Raymond Chen - April 2008
Windows Confidential: 16-Bit Icons Are So Passé
Raymond Chen looks at why Windows Vista doesn't support 16-bit icons, and wonders whether anybody has even noticed.
Raymond Chen - May 2008
Windows Confidential: History Taking Up Space
Microsoft Bob is a lot more prevalent than you might think. Raymond Chen explains how Microsoft Bob made its way into millions of homes.
Raymond Chen - July 2008
Windows Confidential: The Two Worst PCs Ever
Raymond Chen fondly reminisces about working with the two worst computers ever made.
Raymond Chen - June 2008
Windows Confidential: Building on the Past
Raymond explains how the one-time powerful Alpha AXP system came out of retirement to help develop a new generation of 64-bit systems.
Raymond Chen - August 2008
Windows Confidential: Windows 95 Unplugged
Raymond Chen explains how a bit of diagnostic code unexpectedly brought the Windows 95 build to crawl.
Raymond Chen - September 2008
Windows Confidential: Keep Your Caches Close
Raymond Chen looks at how a poorly implemented proxy server can completely nullify the benefits of a proxy server.
Raymond Chen - December 2008
Windows Confidential: Windows Can but Won’t
Raymond Chen explains why Windows can but chooses not to replace a file that is currently in use.
Raymond Chen - November 2008
Windows Confidential: Work Harder, Not Smarter
Raymond Chen looks at the skewed relationship bugs have to errors, and explains why it's important that programmers suffer as well as give results.
Raymond Chen - October 2008
Windows Confidential: Last Check-In Chicken
Raymond Chen explains why it is often the developers who have their acts together who end up checking in the final bug fixes to products.
Raymond Chen - January 2009
Windows Confidential: The Case of the Disappearing Cursor
Have you ever noticed that the cursor blinks when you take a screen capture? Raymond Chen explains why.
Raymond Chen - February 2009
Windows Confidential: The Forgotten Hotkey
Raymond Chen looks at the evolution of the Alt+Tab hotkey and how the Alt+Esc hotkey has remained unscathed.
Raymond Chen - March 2009
Windows Confidential: Forcing Handles Closed
Raymond Chen explores how forcing file handles closed can lead to a series of cascading errors.
Raymond Chen - April 2009
Windows Confidential: Finding the Right Volume
Raymond Chen discusses the difficult job of satisfying audiophiles and those who just want the sound to work.
Raymond Chen - May 2009
Windows Confidential: When Windows Audio Goes Haywire
Raymond Chen discusses how to handle unexpected trouble with the Windows Audio Engine (AudioDG).
Raymond Chen - June 2009
Windows Confidential: Cached Credentials
Depending on your point of view, cached credentials can be both a blessing and a curse. Raymond Chen explains how they work and how you can control them.
Raymond Chen - July 2009
Windows Confidential: Windows 'Prettified' Filenames
Why case-sensitivity doesn’t matter to Windows, just to a user’s sense of aesthetics.
Raymond Chen - August 2009
Windows Confidential: Encoding Is Not Encrypting
Encoding usage information in the Start menu lets tinkerers know to stay away—and here’s why.
Raymond Chen - September 2009