分类： Win故知新

原文链接：https://devblogs.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20050627-00/?p=35193

Many Windows information mechanisms are based on message broadcasts, among them DDE, WM_FONTCHANGE, and changes in system settings. Why do these mechanisms use broadcasts, when we know that broadcasts can result in the system grinding to a halt due to windows that have stopped processing messages?

许多Windows中的信息机制都基于消息广播，其中包括DDE、WM_FONTCHANGE，以及系统设置的变更等。为什么这些机制在知晓可能会遇到已经停止处理消息的窗口，而将整个系统拖入挂起状态的前提下，还是要使用广播机制呢？

Because in 16-bit Windows, you didn’t have this problem.

因为在16位Windows环境下，这个问题是不存在的。

Recall that 16-bit Windows was co-operatively multi-tasking. When a program received control of the CPU, it could do anything it wanted, knowing that no other programs could run until it explicitly yielded control by calling a function such as GetMessage or PeekMessage. The downside of this, of course, was that a single hung program caused the entire system to hang, because it wasn’t releasing the CPU. The upside, however, was that if your program was running, then you knew, a priori, that there were no hung programs in the system. How do you know that? Because if there were a hung program, it would be running and not you. If there’s only one thing, and you have it, then you know that nobody else is hogging it. Therefore, broadcasting messages was completely safe in 16-bit Windows. You didn’t have to worry about non-responsive programs because you had proof that there weren’t any.

回忆一下，16位Windows是协作多任务机制。当某个程序获得了CPU的控制权后，它就可以想做什么做什么，因为它知道直到调用类似GetMessage或PeekMessage这样的方法来让渡（对CPU的）控制权之前，没有其它程序是可以同时运行的。这种设计的不足之处，在于一个程序挂起就会导致整个系统挂起，因为它没有释放对CPU的控制权。而这种设计的益处，则在于如果你的程序在正常运行，那么就可以先知先觉地知晓系统中没有其它挂起的程序。何以见得呢？因为如果如果有挂起的程序的话，那肯定是其它正在运行的程序、并且肯定不是你。如果某样东西只有独一份，而此时它在你的掌控下，你就知道肯定没有其它人在占有它。因此，广播机制在16位Windows环境下是绝对安全的，你不用担心有未响应的程序，因为你有证据证明没有这回事。

Of course, when the switch to pre-emptive multi-tasking occurred, this assumption no longer applied, but by then it was too late. The broadcast-based model was already in use, and consequently had to be preserved for compatibility reasons. (It would be bad if, for example, Lotus 1-2-3 stopped working on Windows NT because DDE broadcasts were no longer supported. If the Windows NT team had tried that gambit, nobody would have upgraded and Windows NT wouldn’t have survived to make a second version.)

自然，当抢占式多任务出现后，这样的猜测就再也无法成立了，但那时已经太晚了。基于广播的模型已经广泛应用，并且基于兼容性的原因还得予以保留。（举例来说，如果 Lotus 1-2-3（译注：1990年代流行的办公软件）由于 Windows NT 不再支持 DDE 广播而无法是用了，那将是一件很糟糕的事。如果 Windows NT 团队真这样下注的话，是不会有人为此而升级系统的，而 Windows NT 连活到第二个版本的机会都没有。）

On the other hand, given the risks involved in DDE broadcasts, you probably would be better off designing your program to not use dynamic data exchange as a data communication mechanism, thereby avoiding the pitfall of message broadcasts. No point contributing to the problem.

另一方面，由于DDE广播中存在的这些风险，你大概应当选择不要使用动态数据交换（DDE）作为你的应用的数据通讯机制，这样就可以避免由于消息广播（的缺点）而产生的坑了。为这种问题添砖加瓦是没有意义的。

原文链接：https://devblogs.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20050623-03/?p=35213

Programs that weren’t designed to handle long file names would make mistakes like taking the path to the executable and writing it into the registry, unaware that the path might contain a space that needs quoting. (Spaces—while technically legal—were extremely rare in SFN paths.) The CreateProcess function had to decide whether to “autocorrect” these invalid paths or to let those programs simply stop working.

在设计阶段没有考虑处理长文件名的应用程序，在实际运行时处理诸如获取可执行文件路径、并将其写入注册表时可能出现一些纰漏，因为其意识不到路径中可能包含空格，需要用（英文）引号包裹起来。（虽然在短文件名体系下的路径中包含空格是合法的，但这种情况极为罕见）。CreateProcess 函数不得不做出一些（额外的）努力，来判定是为这些无效路径做一些『自动修正』，还是放任其停止工作算了。

This is the battle between pragmatism and purity.

这是一场有关实用主义与纯粹主义的论战。

Purity says, “Let them suffer for their mistake. We’re not going to sully our beautiful architecture to accomodate such stupidity.” Of course, such an attitude comes with a cost: People aren’t going to use your “pure” system if it can’t run the programs that they require.

纯粹主义者说，『让那些程序去承担自己犯下的错误吧，我们不应该为了适应这种愚蠢的做法而玷污我们华丽的架构。』当然了，这种态度的代价就是：当人们无法运行所需的程序时，是不会去选用你那所谓『纯粹』的系统的。

Put another way, it doesn’t matter how great your 1.0 version is if you don’t survive long enough to make a 2.0.

换个角度来说，要是你活不到出2.0版本的时候的话，不管你的1.0版有多伟大都没什么意义。

Your choice is between “being pure and unpopular” or “being pragmatic and popular”. Look at all the wonderful technologies that died for lack of popularity despite technical superiority. Sony Betamax. Mattel Intellivision. (And, in the United States: The metric system.)

你需要在『纯粹但无人问津』和『活跃且广为接受』做出选择。回顾一下那些虽然技术上优越、但由于缺乏流行度最终悻悻而终的技术吧。Sony Betamax，Mattel Intellivison都是例子。（在美国，还有公制系统也一样。）

Electric cars are another example. As great as electric cars are, they never reached any significant market success. Only after conceding to popularity and “sullying” their “purity” by adding a gasoline hybrid engine did they finally gain acceptance.

电动汽车是另一个例子（译注：本文撰写时2005年）。虽然电动汽车这个概念很先进，但却从来没有取得任何商业上的成功，只有在面向大众时做出退让、通过增加油电混动引擎而『玷污』了其『纯粹性』之后，才最终被人们所接受。

I see this happening over and over again. A product team that, hypothetically, makes automated diagramming software, says, “I can’t believe we’re losing to Z. Sure, Z’s diagrams may be fast and snazzy, but ours gets <subtle detail> right, and when you go to <extreme case> their diagrams come out a little distorted, and they’re faster only because they don’t try to prevent X and Y from overlapping each other in <scenario Q>. We’re doing all those things; that’s why we’re slower, but that’s also why we’re better. Those people over at Z just don’t ‘get it’.”

我已经看到类似的事情发生了一次又一次：假设有某个研发了一款自动图表软件的产品团队声称：『简直难以置信我们会输给Z公司。是啊，Z的图表软件的确是快了一点、时髦了一点，但我们的产品在（某个细枝末节）上做了正确的事，而且在（某个极端条件下）时，Z公司的软件生成的图表会有点扭曲，何况他们的软件之所以快，是因为他们没有再（场景Q）下避免X和Y重叠。我们把这一切都考虑到了，所以我们的软件会慢了一点，但这也是我们的软件更优的原因。那些吹捧Z公司软件的人根本不懂“这些”。』

Guess what. People are voting with their wallets, and right now their wallets are saying that Z is better in spite of all those “horrible flaws”. Whatever part of “it” they don’t get, it’s certainly not the “make lots of people so happy that they send you money” part.

你猜怎么着，人们是用钱包来投票的，而当下他们的钱包正在呐喊『Z公司的软件更好』而无视了那些“可怕的缺点”。不管这些人不懂的“那些”是什么，肯定不是“让很多人用得开心所以送钱给你”这部分。

原文链接：https://devblogs.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20050621-04/?p=35253

Although many people use the Date/Time control panel to flip through a calendar, that’s not what it is for. In fact, if you use it that way, you can create all sorts of havoc!

尽管有很多人都用『日期/时间设置』控制面板来翻看日历，但这并不是其设计初衷。实际上，如果那样操作的话，还会造成各种大破坏呢！

In its original incarnation in Windows 95, the Date/Time control panel changed your date and time. If you clicked through the calendar to see next month, you actually changed your system clock to next month. If you changed your mind and clicked “Cancel”, the Date/Time control panel undid its changes and restored the date to the original date.

在 Windows 95 的『日期/时间设置』控制面板里，其是用来修改系统的日期和时间设置的。如果在里面的日历上点击查看下个月的话，实际上已经立刻将系统日期修改为下个月了，此时如果你改变主意点击『取消』按钮的话，『日期/时间设置』控制面板会撤销你的设置，并将系统事件调回修改之前的值。

In other words, here’s what happened, step by step:

换句话说，以下是在你操作期间会一步一步发生的事情：

• On April 1, you open the Date/Time control panel.
  4月1日，你打开了『日期/时间设置』控制面板。
• You change the month to May. The Date/Time control panel changes your system date to May 1. If you are running an appointment calendar program, all appointments from the month of April will fire. (For example, your April 15th alarm to remind you to file your income taxes.) You are annoyed by all these alerts and you cancel them.
  你（为了查看日历而）将月份改到了5月，而『日期/时间设置』控制面板也将系统日期改到了5月1日。如果你的系统上安装了日程提醒软件，所有4月份的安排此时都会被激活。（例如，你设置了4月15日提醒自己报税。）你被这些提醒吵到了，于是将它们全部取消掉了。
• You decide you didn’t want to change the month to May after all and click Cancel.
  你决定实际上并不是要将系统日期修改为5月，于是点击了『取消』。
• The Date/Time control panel changes the date back to April 1.
  『日期/时间设置』控制面板将日期改回了4月1日。
• On April 15th, your income tax alarm fails to fire because you cancelled it, remember?
  在4月15日，报税的提醒并没有被激活，因为你之前将它取消掉了，还记得吗？

In other words, the Date/Time control panel was not designed for letting you flip through a calendar. It was designed for changing the system date and time.

换句话说，『日期/时间设置』控制面板的设计并不是让你用来翻日历的，而是用来修改系统的日期和时间的。

Unaware of its design, people have been using the Date/Time control panel as if it were a calendar, not realizing that it was doing all sorts of scary things behind the scenes. It’s like using a cash register as an adding machine. Sure, it does a great job of adding numbers together, but you’re also messing up the accounting back at the main office!

然而，在没有意识到这个设计的前提下，人们一直把『日期/时间设置』控制面板当日历来用，而并没有意识到背后正在发生的、各种可怕的事情。这就像用收款机当加法计算器一样。没错，它的确能把将数字加到一起这件事做得很好，但公司的会计可就要炸锅了。

For Windows 2000, in reluctant recognition of the way people had been mis-using the Date/Time control panel, it was rewritten so that it doesn’t change the system time until you hit the Apply button.

直到 Windows 2000 以后，意识到人们对『日期/时间设置』控制面板的误用，虽然很不情愿，但开发人员还是对其进行了重新编写，使其变成只有在点击『应用』按钮后，新的日期、时间设置才会生效了。

Aaron Margosis shows you how to grant a user permission to change the system date and time without having to make them a full administrator.

Aaron Margosis 在他的文章中介绍了如何获得用户授权来修改系统的日期和时间，而不必将用户提升为具有完全权限的系统管理员。

（译注：我怎么感觉用户的直觉好像没什么问题，反倒是微软原本的设计过于超前啊……）

原文链接：https://devblogs.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20050608-36/?p=35393

Control panel programs and property sheets don’t show up in the taskbar. Why not?

控制面板中的程序，以及各种属性页（译注：如文件属性、文件夹属性等）不会在任务栏中显示，为什么呢？

As I recall, the explanation was that control panel programs and property sheets aren’t applications. They are auxiliary helper windows that assist you with a task, but they aren’t a program in their own right. Therefore, they don’t get a taskbar button.

根据我的记忆，这是由于控制面板里的程序和属性页并不是应用程序。它们是用来协助你完成一项任务的辅助窗口，但其自身并非独立的程序，因此它们就不会有任务栏按钮。

I’ve always been kind of suspicious of that explanation, but there it is, make of it what you will. (I don’t mind the behavior—putting them in the taskbar just creates clutter—but the explanation I found kind of wanting.)

我对这种解释也心存疑虑，不过话就放在这儿，你可以按自己的想法理解。（我对这样的设计并不在乎——将这些内容在任务栏上再开一个按钮显得很累赘——但还是觉得这样的解释有一定的必要性存在。）

（译注：Windows 10 的相关设计已经做出了大幅改变，这里看看就好）

原文链接：https://devblogs.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20050512-48/?p=35653

Today I’m going to tell a story from 1996. Why? Because I can.

这回我要讲一个1996年的故事。为什么呢？因为我想这么做。

One of the tests performed by Windows Hardware Quality Labs (WHQL) was the NCT packet stress test which had the nickname “Hell”. The purpose of the test was to flood a network card with an insane number of packets, in order to see how it handled extreme conditions. It uncovered packet-dropping bugs, timing problems, all sorts of great stuff. Network card vendors used it to determine what size internal hardware buffers should be in order to cover “all reasonable network traffic scenarios”.

Windows硬件设备质量实验室（WHQL）日常进行的其中一项测试是NCT数据包压力测试（译注：没有找到NCT具体指什么，哪位朋友了解请赐教），而这项测试被冠了个昵称叫『地狱』（Hell）。这项测试的目的是让一块网卡去处理数量多到疯狂的数据包，以验证其在极限条件下的表现，而这项测试可以揭露出这块网卡的掉包bug、时序问题等各种各样的毛病。网卡供应商通过这项测试的结果来判定他们的产品硬件缓冲区的大小，以便应对『所有合乎常理的网络流量场景』。

It so happened that at the time this test had currency (1996 era), the traffic on the Microsoft corporate network was approximately 1.7 times worse than the NCT packet stress test. A card could pass the Hell test with flying colors, yet drop 90% of its packets when installed on a computer at Microsoft because the card simply couldn’t keep up with the traffic.

巧合的是，当年这项测试还具备价值时（1996年那时候），运行在微软的企业网络上的流量实际上大约是NCT数据包压力测试的1.7倍之多。某块网卡可能能在『Hell』测试中获得漂亮的分数，但将其安装在微软内部的机器上的时候仍然会有90%的丢包率，仅仅是因为这块网卡实在承受不住那么大的流量。

The open secret among network card vendors was, “If you want your card to work with Windows, submit one card to WHQL and send another to a developer on the Windows team.”

网卡供应商之间的一个公开的秘密是：『如果你想让自己的产品能在 Windows 上运行，那就在向 WHQL 提交样品的同时也给 Windows 开发组的工程师也送一块。』

(This rule applied to hardware other than network cards. I was “gifted” a sound card from a major manufacturer and installed it on my main machine. It wasn’t long before I found and fixed a crashing bug in their driver.)

（这条规矩在网卡之外的硬件上也适用。我就曾经被『赠予』了一块某大厂的声卡，于是就将其装在了我的机器上。没过多久，我就发现并修复了这块声卡的驱动里一个会导致崩溃的bug。）

原文链接：https://devblogs.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20050504-52/?p=35713

Sometimes people ask for features that are such blatant security holes I don’t know what they were thinking.

有些时候，有些人提出的功能需求完全就是安全漏洞，真不知道这些人脑子里都在想什么。

Is there a way to get the current user’s password? I have a program that does some stuff, then reboots the system, and I want to have the current user’s password so I can log that user back in when I’m done, then my program can resume its operation.

有没有办法获取当前用户的密码呢？我的程序会进行一些操作，然后重新启动系统，这时候我希望能获得用户的密码，这样重启完成后就能替用户进行登录，然后我的程序就能继续执行剩下的操作了。

(Sometimes they don’t bother explaining why they need the user’s password; they just ask for it.)

（有时候这些人连为什么需要用户的密码都懒得解释，就只是要而已。）

Imagine the fantastic security hole if this were possible. Anybody could write a program that steals your password without even having to trick you into typing it. They would just call the imaginary GetPasswordOfCurrentUser function and bingo! they have your password.

想象一下如果这件事成为可能的话，会产生一个多么美妙的安全漏洞。任何人都可以写一段程序来窃取你的密码，甚至不需要欺骗你把密码输进去，只需要调用那个虚构的 GetPasswordOfCurrentUser 方法就好了，一转眼，他们就拥有了你的密码。

For another angle on credential-stealing, read Larry Osterman‘s discussion of why delegation doesn’t work over the network.

或者也可以换个角度来观察凭据窃取这个问题，可以读一读  Larry Osterman 关于为什么代理认证在（内部）网络上行不通的文章。

Even if you didn’t want the password itself but merely some sort of “cookie” that could be used to log the user on later, you still have a security hole. Let’s call this imaginary function GetPasswordCookieOfCurrentUser; it returns a “cookie” that can be used to log the user on instead of using their password.

即便你不是想要密码本身，只是想要个某种形式的『Cookie』用于稍后替用户登录，这样操作同样也是一个安全漏洞。姑且将这个想象中的方法叫做 GetPasswordCookieOfCurrentUser，调用之会返回一个『Cookie』可以在稍后用于替用户登录，而不是直接返回用户的密码。

This is just a thinly-disguised GetPasswordOfCurrentUser because that “cookie” is equivalent to a password. Log on with the cookie and you are now that person.

这不过是前述的 GetPasswordOfCurrentUser 稍稍改头换面了一下而已，因为这个『Cookie』等同于密码，用这个『Cookie』登录之后你就是用户本人了。

（译注：Windows 10 看上去已经有了这篇15年前的文章描述的功能了——设置—账户—登录选项—『更新或重启后，使用我的登录信息自动完成设备设置并重新打开我的应用』，但仅限于系统更新或由系统发起的设备配置，而不是像这篇文章说的那样可以由第三方程序使用，且如果本机加入了域或应用了组策略，则该功能不可用。点击这里查看官方说明。）

原文链接：https://devblogs.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20050419-50/?p=35853

By default, Explorer does not show files that have the FILE_ATTRIBUTE_HIDDEN flag, since somebody went out of their way to hide those files from view.

通常情况下，资源管理器不会显示带有 FILE_ATTRIBUTE_HIDDEN 标签的文件，因为有人特意将这些文件在视图中隐藏了。

You can, of course, ask that such files be shown anyway by going to Folder Options and selecting “Show hidden files and folders”. This shows files and folders even if they are marked as FILE_ATTRIBUTE_HIDDEN.

当然，你也可以刻意要求将这些文件显示出来，方法是在『文件夹选项』中勾选『显示隐藏的文件和文件夹』。这样即便被标记了 FILE_ATTRIBUTE_HIDDEN 标签的文件和文件夹也会被显示出来。

On the other hand, files that are marked as both FILE_ATTRIBUTE_HIDDEN and FILE_ATTRIBUTE_SYSTEM remain hidden from view. These are typically files that involved in the plumbing of the operating system, messing with which can cause various types of “excitement”. Files like the page file, folder configuration files, and the System Volume Information folder.

另一方面，同时具有 FILE_ATTRIBUTE_HIDDEN  和 FILE_ATTRIBUTE_SYSTEM 标签的文件在视图中仍然是隐藏的，这类文件通常是对系统来说至关重要的，对这些文件乱来会造成各种各样『激动人心』的事情，例如页面文件（译注：虚拟内存）、文件夹的配置文件、以及卷信息（System Volumn Information）文件夹。

If you want to see those files, too, then you can uncheck “Hide protected operating system files”.

如果你想看到这些文件，可以选择取消勾选『隐藏受保护的系统文件』。

Let’s look at how far this game of hide/show ping-pong has gone:

现在我们来看看这场隐藏与显示猫鼠游戏走到了什么地步：

You’d think this would be the end of the hide/show arms race, but apparently some people want to add a sixth level and make something invisible to Explorer, overriding the five existing levels.

你可能以为这场隐藏与现实的军备竞赛就到此为止了，但很显然，有人还想再加一个第六级别，让某些东西在资源管理器中不可见，凌驾于现有的五层设计之上。

At some point this back-and-forth has to stop, and for now, it has stopped at level five. Adding just a sixth level would create a security hole, because it would allow a file to hide from the user. As a matter of security, a sufficiently-privileged user must always have a way of seeing what is there or at least know that there is something there that can’t be seen. Nothing can be undetectably invisible.

这种你来我往的竞赛到了某种程度就应该打住了，而目前则停在了第五级上。只增加一个第六级会催生一个安全漏洞，因为那样就会允许某个文件对用户不可见。出于安全考虑，某个具备足够权限的用户必须总是有办法看到某处有什么东西，或者至少知道那里有什么目前看不到的东西。任何东西完全隐形、无法被检测到是不可以的。

If you add a sixth level that lets a file hide from level five, then there must be a level seven that reveals it.

如果你真的增加了在第五级的情况下看不到的第六级，那么就必须有第七级可以解除这种限制。

原文链接：https://devblogs.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20050328-00/?p=36053

JeffDav’s story of a program that didn’t like it when he told it where to install reminded me of another program that we dealt with during Windows 95 development.

JeffDav 上那篇关于某个不喜欢被用户指定安装位置的程序的故事，让我想起我们在 Windows 95 开发过程中曾经面对的另一个程序。

This was a big-name program developed by one of the biggest-of-the-big name software companies. Let’s give this program the imaginary name “LitWare”. Its setup program asked you where you wanted the program to be installed, and it suggested “C:\LITWARE”. If you accepted the default, then everything proceeded normally.

那个程序是某个顶尖有名的大公司开发的某个大品牌，这里我们先给它起个虚构的名字，叫 LitWare。这个应用的安装程序会询问你要将其安装到哪个位置，并顺带建议安装到『C:\LITWARE』。如果你直接采纳这个默认值，那么一切都会很顺利。

However, if you changed the default to anything else, the setup program ran to completion, but the program itself wouldn’t run.

然而，如果你把这个默认值改成其它的路径，那么虽然可以完成安装，但程序本身则无法启动。

Because the program contained the hard-coded path “C:\LITWARE” and insisted that it find its support files in that directory.

因为程序里将路径『C:\LITWARE』进行了硬编码，并坚持在那个路径下面寻找程序的支持文件。

At least Jeff’s program realized that it was about to be installed into a directory where it would fail to work!

至少 Jeff 提到的那个程序还晓得自己要被安装到会造成它没法工作的目录里去呢！

 

附：文章开头提到的 JeffDav 上的文章：《安装的麻烦》（Installation woes）

原文链接：https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/archive/blogs/jeffdav/installation-woes

After successfully getting Windows XP SP2 installed on my laptop, I started installing other software.

在成功把 Windows XP SP2 安装到我笔记本上之后，我开始安装其它的程序。

This post has nothing to do with IE, but I need to vent.

这篇博文跟 IE 没什么关系，但我还是得发泄一下。

Nameless 3rd Party App: Where do you want to install me? How about c:\nameless?

某第三方应用：你要把我安装到什么地方？C:\nameless 这个路径怎么样？

Jeffdav: How about c:\program files\nameless?

Jeffdav：C:\Program Files\nameless 怎么样？

Nameless 3rd Party App: It is a bad idea to install me somewhere with spaces in the path. Continue anyway?

某第三方应用：把我装到路径里有空格的位置可不是个好主意，还是要继续吗？

Jeffdav: No. Lame. At least it knows it is lame and told me while I still have a chance to do something about it.

Jeffdav：不，算了吧。至少它还知道这样会出事，把这件事告诉了我，让我还有机会做点改变。

Jeffdav: Okay, fine, c:\nameless.

Jeffdav：行吧，那就这样，C:\nameless。

（译注：下面是另一个故事）

Nameless Microsoft App: Installing…

某微软应用：正在安装……

Nameless Microsoft App: Installing… <30 minutes later>

某微软应用：正在安装……（30分钟之后）

Microsoft Windows: You have lost your connection to the wireless LAN! (I was walking to a meeting.)

Windows：无线网络连接不可用！（我正在端着笔记本去开会的路上）

Nameless Microsoft App: Internal Error 3452. [OK]

某微软应用：内部错误3452。（点OK）

Microsoft Windows: You have reconnected to the wireless LAN!

Windows：无线网络已连接！

Jeffdav: <clicks OK>

Jeffdav：（点OK）

Nameless Microsoft App: Uninstalling…

某微软应用：正在卸载……

Nameless Microsoft App: Thanks for playing. Please start from the beginning again.

某微软应用：胜败乃兵家常事，大侠请重新来过。

Of course I did have success stories. Windows was easy to install off the slipstream CD. Putty, as always, was easy to install since setup for putty is simply xcopy.

当然我也成功安装过其它的程序。Windows 从整合好的光盘上安装很简单。Putty 则是一如既往的简单，毕竟只是一行 xcopy 的事。

The moral of this story, I guess, is that Setup is Hard.

我想，这个故事的寓意大概是，安装这件事真难啊。

原文链接：https://devblogs.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20050315-00/?p=36183

（译注：我深知这一篇的翻译质量应该很差，看不下去的话请直接跳过……）

Although Windows is centered around, well, windows, a window itself is not a cheap object. What’s more, the tight memory constraints of systems of 1985 forced various design decisions.

尽管 Windows 是围绕着窗体（windows）设计的，不过窗体并不是便宜大把的对象。此外，1985年硬件配置中紧俏的内存限制催生了很多被迫的设计决定。

Let’s take for example the design of the list box control. In a modern design, you might design the list box control as accepting a list of child windows, each of which represents an entry in the list. A list box with 20,000 items would have 20,000 child windows.

以 Listbox 控件的设计为例。在如今的设计理念中，你可能会将其设计为包含一列子窗体的控件，每个子窗体代表列表中的一个条目。一个拥有20000项条目的 Listbox 就会有20000个子窗体。

That would have been completely laughable in 1985.

这种设计在1985年会让人笑掉大牙。

Recall that Windows was built around a 16-bit processor. Window handles were 16-bit values and internally were just near pointers into a 64K heap. A window object was 88 bytes (I counted), which means that you could squeeze in a maximum of 700 or so before you ran out of memory. What’s more, menus hung out in this same 64K heap, so the actual limit was much lower.

回忆一下，当时 Windows 是围绕16位处理器设计的。窗体句柄是一系列16位的值，在内部则表现为一个 64K 堆中相邻的指针。一个窗体对象要用掉88个字节（我数过了），这就意味着你最多能在内存里塞下700个窗体，再塞就要内存溢出了。另外，菜单也在同一个 64K 堆中，故而实际的上限可能会更低。

Even if the window manager internally used a heap larger than 64K (which Windows 95 did), 20,000 windows comes out to over 1.5MB. Since the 8086 had a maximum address space of 1MB, even if you devoted every single byte of memory to window objects, you’d still not have enough memory.

即便窗体管理器在内部使用的是一个大于 64K 的堆（Windows 95即是如此），20000个窗体也要消耗将近 1.5MB 的空间。由于 8086 处理器的地址空间上限是 1MB，就算你将内存的每一个字节都贡献给窗体对象使用，还是没有足够的内存可以用。

Furthermore, making each list box item a window means that every list box would be a variable-height list box, which carries with it the complexity of managing a container with variable-height items. This goes against two general principles of API design: (1) simple things should be simple, and (2) “pay-for-play”, that if you are doing the simple thing, you shouldn’t have to pay the cost of the complex thing.

除此之外，让每一个 Listbox 的项目都作为一个窗体，意味着每个 Listbox 都会是高度可变的，这就带来了管理包含着可变高度项目的容器的复杂性。如此的设计违背了 API 设计的两项基本原则：（1）简单的事物就应该简单，以及（2）『办多少事花多少钱』，也就是如果事情本身就很简单，便不应当为复杂的事情付出代价。

Filling a list box with actual windows also would have made the “virtual list box” design significantly trickier. With the current design, you can say, “There are a million items” without actually having to create them.

将一个 Listbox 填满事实意义上的窗体，也会将这个『虚拟 Listbox』的设计变得陡然复杂起来。按照其目前的设计，你可以声明『列表中有一百万项』，但不必实际去创建这么多项目。

(This is also why the window space is divided into “client” and “non-client” areas rather than making the non-client area consist of little child windows.)

（这也是为什么窗体控件被分割为『工作区』和『非工作区』，而不是让非工作区也填满了小小的子窗体的缘故。）

To maintain compatibility with 16-bit Windows programs (which still run on Windows XP thanks to the WOW layer), there cannot be more than 65536 window handles in the system, because any more than that would prevent 16-bit programs from being able to talk meaningfully about windows. (Once you create your 65537’th window, there will be two windows with the same 16-bit handle value, thanks to the pigeonhole principle.)

为了维持与16位Windows应用程序的兼容性（鉴于WOW（译注：Windows-On-Windows，在新版Windows上为面向旧版系统设计的应用程序提供有限兼容性的兼容层，此处为32位系统兼容16位应用程序）层，这些程序在 Windows XP 上仍然可用），系统中的窗体句柄不能超过65536个，因为超过这个限制会阻止16位应用程序与系统对窗体进行有意义的沟通。（一旦创建了第65537个窗体，就会出现具有相同句柄值的两个窗体——感谢鸽巢原理（译注：又叫抽屉原理，指如果尝试将n+1个元素放进n个集合中，那么必然有一个集合中包含2个元素）的存在。）

(And yes, 16/32-bit interoperability is still important even today.)

（另外没错，16/32位应用程序的交互操作性，时至今日仍然很重要。）

With a limit of 65536 window handles, your directory with 100,000 files in it would be in serious trouble.

鉴于65535个窗体句柄上限的存在，你那拥有10万个文件的目录（如果按照前面那样嵌套小窗体的设计）就会有大麻烦了。

The cost of a window object has grown over time, as new features get added to the window manager. Today it’s even heftier than the svelte 88 bytes of yesteryear. It is to your advantage not to create more windows than necessary.

随着新功能不断加入窗体管理器，窗体对象的成本也在不断攀升。如今窗体数据的健壮程度已与当年那个苗条的88字节大小不可同日而语，而不要创建多于必要的窗体的责任就落在了你的肩上。

If your application design has you creating thousands of windows for sub-objects, you should consider moving to a windowless model, like Internet Explorer, Word, list boxes, treeview, listview, and even our scrollbar sample program. By going windowless, you shed the system overhead of a full window handle, with all the baggage that comes with it. Since window handles are visible to all processes, there is a lot of overhead associated with centrally managing the window list. If you go windowless, then the only program that can access your content is you. You don’t have to worry about marshalling, cross-process synchronization, Unicode/ANSI translation, external subclassing, hooks… And you can use a gigabyte of memory to keep track of your windowless data if that’s what you want, since your windowless controls don’t affect any other processes. The fact that window handles are accessible to other processes imposes a practical limit on how many of them can be created without impacting the system as a whole.

如果你的程序设计需要你创建成千上万个用于内部对象的窗体，你应当考虑迁移到无窗体的模型，就像 Internet Explorer、Word、Listbox、TreeView、ListView，甚至我们的滚动条示例程序那样。通过使用无窗体设计，你的程序向系统展示的就只有一个完整的窗体句柄，里面包含着所有大大小小的元素。由于窗体句柄是对所有进程可见的，对于集中管理的窗体列表来说负担是很重的。如果采用无窗体设计，那么唯一可以访问窗体中内容的就是你自己。你不必担心 Marshalling、跨进程同步、Unicode/ANSI 转换、外部子类、钩子…… 等等的麻烦事。另外如果你愿意，动用一个G的内存来跟踪你的无窗体模型下的内容也是刻意的，因为你的无窗体模型中的控件不会影响其它进程。由于窗体句柄对其他进程是可见的，也就对可以创建多少个窗体句柄而不会对系统整体产生重大影响这一事实施加了影响。

I believe that WinFX uses the “everything on the screen is an element” model. It is my understanding that they’ve built a windowless framework so you don’t have to. (I’m not sure about this, though, not being a WinFX person myself.)

我相信 WinFX 利用了『屏幕上的一切都是元素』这种模型，我的理解是他们构建了一个无窗体框架，以便你不用再从头造一遍轮子。（尽管对此我并不确定，毕竟我不是相关人士。）

原文链接：https://devblogs.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20050225-00/?p=36363

In beta versions of Windows XP, there was special code in the window manager to give every window a link in the upper right corner called “Comments?” which if clicked on displayed a dialog that allowed you to submit feedback to Microsoft about that window.

在 Windows XP 的beta 版本中，窗口管理器里有一段特别设计的代码，用来给每个窗口的右上角添加一个写作『Comments?』（有意见？）的链接，点击它会显示一个对话框，用于向微软提交关于那个窗口的反馈意见。

Since this was a beta release, there was no anonymity when you submitted feedback. (You signed away your anonymity when you agreed to the special beta license agreement and typed in your beta ID number.) Yet we got more than one feedback submission that begin, “Hi, I pirated this copy of Windows XP, and here’s some feedback.”

鉴于这是 beta 版，提交反馈时是没有什么匿名性可言的。（当你签署那张特别的 beta 授权协议并录入了你的 beta ID 时，你就已经让出让了你的匿名权。）不过我们还是收到了不止一份反馈，开头就是：『嗨，我这份 Windows XP 是盗版的，以下是我的反馈。』

In its initial incarnation, the word in the title bar was “Lame”, but people with a weaker sense of humor changed it to the less confrontational “Comments?”. The name “Lame” came from a recurring sketch on local comedy show Almost Live! called “The Lame List, or What’s Weak This Week (brought to you with the help of Seattle’s Heavy Metal community)”.

一开始的时候，标题栏里那个链接写的是『Lame』（跛的，瘸的），不过有个没太有幽默感的人把它换成了比较不具有挑衅性的『Comments?』。（译注：最后一句实在没看懂，但应该不影响对全文的理解，望看懂的朋友赐教。）