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by svieira 1650 days ago
Yep - read some of the awesome / horrific horror stories from having too large an API surface area from Raymond Chen here: https://ptgmedia.pearsoncmg.com/images/9780321440303/samplec...

Patching other people's binaries, turning off features if the app making the request is "problematic-app", re-introducing bugs, fixing should-be-impossible-to-happen calls from programs that were written by hand, it's all there!
3 comments
jamesfinlayson 1650 days ago
> one useful shim is known as HeapPadAllocation; it is applied to programs that have heap buffer overrun bugs. The shim intercepts calls to the HeapAllocate function and adds a specified amount to the requested size. That way, when the program overruns a buffer, it merely corrupts the padding rather than corrupting the next heap block.

Oh good grief.

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rkagerer 1650 days ago
Wow, amazing how they bent over backwards to keep customers up and running. I wish they cared that deeply about their users today.

(Not saying the approach should be the same, just wish the attitude and motivation were as intense and that Win 10+ were less user-hostile.)

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tonyedgecombe 1649 days ago
It was different when your typical application came on ten floppy disks. Not being able to use it on the next version of Windows might hinder the adoption of Windows.
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iamtedd 1649 days ago
Going to have to buy this book now. Enjoyed this extract. I wonder what font was used? whatthefont thinks it might be Adobe Jenson Display, and I don't currently have any PDF tools to inspect the document. The 'y' looks so pretty, with it's rightward curve.
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