"What if two programs did this?" https://devblogs.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20050607-00/?p=35413 https://devblogs.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20050607-00/?p=35...

"What if two programs did this?" https://devblogs.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20050607-00/?p=35413 https://devblogs.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20050607-00/?p=35... This is a recurring theme featured in multiple of Raymond Chen's blog posts, though. This is just the earliest one I can remember. Here's a few more: https://www.google.com/search?q=%22two+programs%22+site%253Adevblogs.microsoft.com+inurl%253Aoldnewthing https://www.google.com/search?q=%22two+programs%22+site%253A... The "what if two programs did this" mantra I learned from these blog posts helped me greatly in judging whether certain feature requests from users make any sense at all. As soon as it involves touching system configuration, even if there is an API for it, it's probably a very bad idea.