Archive for May, 2009

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Internet Explorer is not YAWA

Posted by Satya Das
May 21, 2009

From a programmer’s perspective Internet Explorer is not Yet Another Windows Application (YAWA1). Considering all the versions of IE out there, when I say Internet Explorer I mean for the most part 32-bit Internet Explorer 7 on Windows Vista onwards in the default configuration (ie. User Account Control on, Protected Mode on). For starters, if [...]

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Privileges play hard-to-get in Vista

Posted by Satya Das
May 10, 2009

Privileges are a way to control who has access to certain system-wide resources. For example if a user does not have SE_SHUTDOWN_PRIVILEGE aka SeShutdownPrivilege, she cannot shutdown the machine. Privileges are stored in the token and have to be present and enabled to take effect. If a privilege is absent or disabled  in the process/thread [...]

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Improving driver diagnostics

Posted by Satya Das
May 5, 2009

TRoy, a good friend and ex-colleague of mine, presented at Microsoft Global Escalation Conference 2009 about how programmers can help improve driver diagnostics and “support support” when hard to reproduce problems are reported and all you have is a memory dump. He shows several techniques complete with short examples of each and how each technique [...]