4 ms·

Man, every post from Raymond Chen regarding Windows internals is like a little Xmas. I wonder whether he has to ask someone for permission before publishing th

by lyorig 23d ago

Man, every post from Raymond Chen regarding Windows internals is like a little Xmas. I wonder whether he has to ask someone for permission before publishing this knowledge, though.

alex_suzuki 23d ago
I also wonder what his thoughts on “modern Windows” are
- dyllon 23d ago
  His silence speaks a thousand words.
  - bigstrat2003 23d ago
    Yeah I agree. Mr. Chen strikes me as too professional to put his employer on blast like that, but he's likely not a fan.
    - jasomill 22d ago
      I imagine he's fine with it in terms of job satisfaction at the very least, as far as I can tell his areas of expertise are shell and related COM internals, and he clearly takes pride in the nuances of cleaning up other peoples' messes, and if there are two things that have remained constant in Windows programming over the past 30 years, it's COM and messes.
- darig 23d ago
  [dead]
- 98codes 22d ago
  It's not as if he's stopped working on Windows since 2000.
Hydraulix989 23d ago
Easier for a guy like him to be forgiven than to ask permission. Being tenured and one of the top engineers in your company with a very proven track record gives you quite a bit more freedom.
- xp84 22d ago
  Yeah - he's more likely the guy that would be giving that kind of permission to someone more junior.
fred_is_fred 23d ago
If you ask for permission on something like this the answer is always no.
cloudfudge 22d ago
It's been many years since I talked to him, but he's an extremely by-the-book guy, so I'm sure he has a process for clearing everything he writes. His reputation does probably provide him a lot of leeway, though. He also has a queue of oldnewthing articles about a mile long and we could probably get years' worth of articles after his death if they let them run.
petya415 22d ago
Isn't there a guy on youtube that spills tea about the internals of old windows systems? And I suspect their NDAs about XP expired years ago - I don't see much harm in sharing these herbivore algorithms. Very cute post tho.
- aqfamnzc 22d ago
  Dave Plummer?
  - reddalo 22d ago
    I used to follow him, but then I've read some controversial news about him...
- deleted 22d ago
  [deleted]
- jasomill 22d ago
  Forget YouTube. Google "windows xp source code leaks" and one of the top hits is a six-year old GitHub repo. Which sort of makes sense. I'm not sure technical trade secrets have ever played much of a role in Microsoft's success. With or without source code, programmers have been digging at the internals of Microsoft OSes for fun and profit since the DOS days, and Microsoft has always seemed to recognize that developers and customers relying on the undocumented nuances of their products benefits them far more than understanding them benefits their competitors.

by lyorig 23d ago

Man, every post from Raymond Chen regarding Windows internals is like a little Xmas. I wonder whether he has to ask someone for permission before publishing this knowledge, though.

alex_suzuki 23d ago

I also wonder what his thoughts on “modern Windows” are

dyllon 23d ago
His silence speaks a thousand words.
- bigstrat2003 23d ago
  Yeah I agree. Mr. Chen strikes me as too professional to put his employer on blast like that, but he's likely not a fan.
  - jasomill 22d ago
    I imagine he's fine with it in terms of job satisfaction at the very least, as far as I can tell his areas of expertise are shell and related COM internals, and he clearly takes pride in the nuances of cleaning up other peoples' messes, and if there are two things that have remained constant in Windows programming over the past 30 years, it's COM and messes.
darig 23d ago
[dead]
98codes 22d ago
It's not as if he's stopped working on Windows since 2000.

Hydraulix989 23d ago

Easier for a guy like him to be forgiven than to ask permission. Being tenured and one of the top engineers in your company with a very proven track record gives you quite a bit more freedom.

xp84 22d ago
Yeah - he's more likely the guy that would be giving that kind of permission to someone more junior.

fred_is_fred 23d ago

If you ask for permission on something like this the answer is always no.

cloudfudge 22d ago

It's been many years since I talked to him, but he's an extremely by-the-book guy, so I'm sure he has a process for clearing everything he writes. His reputation does probably provide him a lot of leeway, though. He also has a queue of oldnewthing articles about a mile long and we could probably get years' worth of articles after his death if they let them run.

petya415 22d ago

Isn't there a guy on youtube that spills tea about the internals of old windows systems? And I suspect their NDAs about XP expired years ago - I don't see much harm in sharing these herbivore algorithms. Very cute post tho.

aqfamnzc 22d ago
Dave Plummer?
- reddalo 22d ago
  I used to follow him, but then I've read some controversial news about him...
deleted 22d ago
[deleted]
jasomill 22d ago
Forget YouTube. Google "windows xp source code leaks" and one of the top hits is a six-year old GitHub repo. Which sort of makes sense. I'm not sure technical trade secrets have ever played much of a role in Microsoft's success. With or without source code, programmers have been digging at the internals of Microsoft OSes for fun and profit since the DOS days, and Microsoft has always seemed to recognize that developers and customers relying on the undocumented nuances of their products benefits them far more than understanding them benefits their competitors.