James Finnigan
Debugging, Shell Programming, Setup, Working at Microsoft, Virtualization
Teaching Children to Program Khan Academy / Processing
I've got a new experiment going on where I'm trying to get the kids interested in the new computer...
Date: 09/08/2012
Teaching Children to Program
I was playing Robozzle with my oldest and he was having a blast and loved that he was programming...
Date: 04/04/2009
Hyper-V review
The hypervisor support in Server 2008 is now out in beta and it's great to see the product hitting...
Date: 01/31/2008
Beginning again - and hiring
Well, fun times. I've taken a position on the Virtual Machine Manager team. I'll be one...
Date: 11/07/2007
The Shell Extensions Approved list is not a complete list of shell extensions on the system
I've noticed that a number of different programs just look at the Approved list of shell extensions...
Date: 09/08/2007
Supplemental Registrations (aka. Context Menu Handers (etc) - where are they loaded from...)
I've been thinking about the registration problem where you want to add a context menu (much of this...
Date: 09/06/2007
Installing shell extensions - please complain here
So... I've been looking more closely at Wix and I think I'm going to build some custom actions to do...
Date: 08/10/2007
Summer Fun, Full House
(Normally this kind of post is reserved for my other blog where I mostly blog about non-tech - so...
Date: 07/26/2007
The best way to make UAC shut up for a while
Let's say you want to install a few things and want UAC to stop bugging you while you install them....
Date: 06/08/2007
How to stop WinDbg from going crazy and loading all the symbols
One of my favorite features of WinDbg is that it doesn't load all the symbols up-front. That's a...
Date: 06/04/2007
Breaking when the instruction pointer leaves the module
The problem is to skip out of a kernel driver that we don't have symbols for - what's the best way...
Date: 05/31/2007
Finding where a bad HRESULT is returned
I've looked at this a couple times, but here's another way to break when the error code you're...
Date: 05/31/2007
How to only break on a jump when it will be taken
Here's a question that came up a work a little bit back - thought I would share the result around....
Date: 05/31/2007
Making an MSI that doesn't need a UAC/LUA prompt
The goal I think that most things don't need to require a UAC prompt to install - just install it...
Date: 05/03/2007
How to launch an un-elevated process from an elevated process
Update: Please refer to Aaron's FAQ which is being maintained while this post has grown stale This...
Date: 04/11/2007
UAC UI on oldnewthing - what the colors mean
I mentioned recently that I was the new owner of the UAC UI (from the dev side). Well, today I found...
Date: 03/31/2007
Flat Solution Explorer
Here's a great tool for folks that use Visual Studio with large projects - it gives you a flat view...
Date: 03/22/2007
New Beginnings...
I've moved onto the Windows Experience team. It should a lot of fun to continue to follow Guided...
Date: 03/14/2007
Virtual PC 2007: Released, as free download
How cool is that - we're releasing Virtual PC 2007 as a free download. Why should you care? Here's...
Date: 02/25/2007
RegNamespace sample up on codeplex
Scott, Jerry, Thayn and I have whipped up a sample of indexing the registry, as well as a shell...
Date: 02/16/2007
Windows Live ID Client SDK alpha release
On a recent post about BITSAdmin, someone commented on how you needed to be logged into passport to...
Date: 02/02/2007
Recruiting at BYU
Hi all - I'm at BYU for the career fair tomorrow (Wednesday). Come on down and talk to us and bring...
Date: 01/31/2007
RE: How to get rid of that pesky Windows Welcome Center at FIRST boot
While reading blog comments about Welcome Center, I came across this entry on how to remove welcome...
Date: 01/25/2007
Yahoo! Messenger for Windows Vista
I was just looking at the Yahoo! Messenger for Windows Vista video. Wow. It's gorgeous. It's nice to...
Date: 01/24/2007
Bernie Klinder ♡ Guided Help
From Bernie's review of Windows Vista's killer features... Guided Help and Automated Diagnostics --...
Date: 01/16/2007
Smile spotting - can you tell the difference?
I was taking a smile spotting survey that I found from Kathy Sierra's blog (good reading) and I know...
Date: 01/16/2007
Using WMIC to check for predicted disk failure (S.M.A.R.T. analysis)
I was looking at the Windows Vista Reliability and Performance Monitor and noticed that the data...
Date: 01/15/2007
Microsoft CES website - Group Shot pictures
Here's Microsoft's CES website. There's a ton of interesting stuff on here. The one that will...
Date: 01/10/2007
WMI Folder - codeplex project
Well, I've put the WMI folder code up on codeplex. Please remember that this code is very much...
Date: 01/10/2007
How to use BITS to transfer files
BITS is Microsoft's background intelligent transfer service. It's used to transfer files without it...
Date: 12/23/2006
Sabarinath Nair reviews Guided Help, Vista
Sabarinath had this to say about Guided Help: Guided Help While this feature is still under beta, I...
Date: 12/23/2006
Microsoft Junk Email Reporting Tool
This tool allows you to send in junk email so that others won't have to read it and hopefully others...
Date: 12/23/2006
Our uninvited Christmas tree(s)
Well, there's a lot of story to the last couple days so I'm going to bite it off in pieces. Here's...
Date: 12/17/2006
Will it blend? - Extreme Blending
I know this is stupid - but I still can't resist sharing. What blender manufacturers do when they...
Date: 12/08/2006
Wii Damage
The Wii is just cool - I have a lot of friends asking me if I can get them a discount on it and I...
Date: 12/08/2006
OldNewThing - Raymond Chen's new Book
Okay, I changed my mind, I wrote a book after all Back in 1993, I wrote that I'm doing this instead...
Date: 12/07/2006
Halo 3 Beta signup
From the site... North America Halo Gamers! Register now for future Halo 3 updates and for an...
Date: 12/05/2006
New Halo 3 trailer - Starry Night
XBox Marketplace has a new trailer up - starry night. Enjoy!
Date: 12/05/2006
Computer for the kitchen?
[via on10] Interesting idea - but when's the last time you looked at a well-used recipe book?...
Date: 12/04/2006
The Problem with Programming
This is a great article in which Bjarne Stroustrup, the inventor of the C++ programming language,...
Date: 12/04/2006
Getting a Path from an IDList
Not much to this - but I notice searches for this coming to my blog, so I might as well provide the...
Date: 12/01/2006
Photo Album Publishing - Why print photos when you can print a book?
Did you know that you can print custom books now? I can easily and cheaply create my own book with...
Date: 12/01/2006
Christmas Camera Shopping Technique and Recommendation
I've been thinking about good point and click cameras lately, and I'm a big fan of the Ricoh Caplio...
Date: 11/26/2006
Windows boot screens though time
Long Zheng shows off the progression in the screen that is both the first thing we see and the last...
Date: 11/25/2006
Windows Vista Keyboard Shortcuts
Just came across this good listing of keyboard shortcuts in Windows Vista and thought I'd share them...
Date: 11/24/2006
Agile teams at Microsoft?
Well, I was just reading ex-MSFT guy Moishe Lettvin's entry about how the start menu put together....
Date: 11/24/2006
Locating the file that a function (not on the stack) was written in
This question came up in one of the internal aliases a couple days ago. While debugging, how do I...
Date: 11/10/2006
Screencast: Video of a few Guided Help Topics running.
So Andrew, went through and put together a screencast of a few of the Guided Help topics in action....
Date: 11/10/2006
Photosynth is LIVE!
I talked about this cool service a little while ago - it's really cool. From the videos, it's really...
Date: 11/09/2006
Google emails a worm
Hey, Apple gets to ship worms, it's only fitting that Google emails them. I only wish Microsoft...
Date: 11/09/2006