Logitech SetPoint WM_MOUSEHWHEEL bugs

Logitech's SetPoint mouse drivers have serious mistakes in their handling of horizontal scroll-wheel messages (WM_MOUSEHWHEEL).

The mistakes cause problems in many applications and I have personally wasted hours, if not days, battling them in my own code.

I share my findings to help other developers:
http://pretentiousname.com/setpoint_hwheel/index.html
 

Windows 7 Explorer bug that silently aborts large file copies

Just stumbled on a pretty awful bug in Explorer.

Figured I'd make a quick page about it in case other people run into it.

It's easy to avoid, and also only triggered by doing something fairly unusual (for most users at least), but if you run into it you'll be unlikely to trust Explorer to copy a lot of data until you understand what triggers the problem and what to avoid doing in order to stay safe.

Full details and a video are on my main website.

Flash links updated for Flash 11

I have updated my page with direct links to the Flash updaters and version checker:

• http://www.pretentiousname.com/flash_links/

For Flash 11, the installers have moved on Adobe's site.

You still have to update Internet Explorer and Firefox separately.

They have finally (and four years late) introduced 64-bit versions into the mix. Now you can infect even more versions of your browsers with Flash!

They seem to have stopped trying to make people use their stupid download manager.

They have not stopped trying to trick people into installing extra bundled crap (McAfee or Google Toolbar, depending on browser). Strangely, the installer you get is identical, whether or not you opt out of said crap, except for the filename which seems to determine whether or not the extra stuff is installed. So don't rename the installers.

Here's how rubbish Adobe's update checker is: The Flash 11 installers are over a month old (from the digital signature timestamps), yet I didn't even know Flash 11 existed until someone emailed me (thanks, Cobaco/Bart!) to let me know my links were still pointing to Flash 10. This is even though I had three different computers with Flash 10 installed, presumably all wide open to known security holes that were fixed in the newer version. Brilliant. I wouldn't mind slow update notifications if Flash wasn't such a gaping malware vector, and if the notifications actually worked at some point and for all browsers instead of just a random one... Adobe's failure knows no boundaries.

SetDllInheritance issue

This will only be of interest to Windows developers.

I've written about some problems we discovered with using SetDllDirectory to plug the 'binary planting' security issue.

Here's the page:

• SetDllDirectory inheritance issue

Adobe Reader X direct download

Just like with Flash updates, Adobe are now inflicting their stupid Download Manager (and McAfee junk) on people trying to download Adobe Reader X (which is also not found via the auto-updater in Adobe Reader 9).

Here's a link to Adobe's FTP site where you can download a normal installer directly:

• ftp://ftp.adobe.com/pub/adobe/reader/win/

Found via this thread. I've tacked this on to my Flash standalone installer links page to help find it in the future.

How to find components (e.g. shell extensions) causing memory leaks

I wrote a guide which, while aimed at Directory Opus users, might be useful to others as well, so figured I'd mentioning it here:

Opus News Blog: New guide: How to find components causing memory leaks

When the SysInternals VMMap tool was first released it seemed neat but only useful in rare situations. Recently it has gained the ability to track memory allocations and show stack traces for them and that has made it very useful indeed. That's what the guide is about.

Flash standalone installer links

If Adobe won't keep links to the standalone Flash installers/updaters in a sensible, easy-to-find place, I will:

http://www.pretentiousname.com/flash_links/

64-bit Adobe Reader fix updates

I have updated my page on the 64-bit Adobe Reader fixes as well as the preview handler fix tool:

• Fixes for 64-bit Adobe Reader preview handler and thumbnails

The updates are in response to Adobe Reader 9.3.2 and Office 2010 RTM.

Adobe Reader 9.3.2:

Half a year after I published the information, Adobe finally incorporated the preview handler fix (but no thumbnails fix) into the Adobe Reader 9.3.2 (April 2010).

Note that at the time of writing you only get 9.3.0 when you download and install Adobe Reader; to get the latest version, which includes several vital security updates in addition to the x64 preview handler fix, you have to run its update checker after installation.

Also note that there is no mention of the x64 preview handler fix (nor any credit given to me, heh) in the change log. Credit goes to Alex Bantzhaff for noticing that 9.3.2 included the fix and for letting me know.

Maybe in 2011 Adobe will manage to fix the thumbnails as well; until then you can get a fix for them from my site. :-)

Office 2010 RTM

Office 2010 RTM fixes the problem that was in Office 2010 beta where the 64-bit version required some extra registry changes to make the Adobe Reader (and other) preview handler work.

The preview handler fix tool now has a checkbox so you can tell it whether or not you want the extra Office 2010 beta changes.

If you've upgraded to Office 2010 RTM then you can use the new fix tool to clean up the old, unwanted registry settings. (Such clean-up and repair tasks are the main reason that the preview handler fix tool still exists.)

Thumbnails

No change in terms of the thumbnails. My current "Thumbridge" is still required and has not needed any changes since the February updates.

Windows time sync, alternative method

Stefan Kanthak wrote to me with an alternative, and much easier, method of making Windows synchronize its clock more frequently.

I have updated my guide to include Stefan's method as the first suggestion. (The old, alternative method is still there in case it's useful for some reason.)

http://www.pretentiousname.com/timesync/index.html

Visual Studio 2010 binary corruption issue on exFAT drives

I ran into a nasty issue where Visual Studio 2010 (the RTM version which just came out) often corrupts the binaries it outputs if the project is on an exFAT partition.

I've written about the problem on my website and also filed a bug report on the Connect website.

Hopefully it only affects exFAT partitions, and it only seems to, but it's made me decide not to switch to VS2010 just yet. I do like a lot of the new features but I'm going to wait a bit longer.

Make Windows synchronize time more often

I've written a guide on how to make Windows (including Windows 7) synchronize its time more often than once per week (which is important if your PC clocks drift as much as mine do).

Note that you have to do more than just make the Synchronize Time task run more often (which it turns out has no real effect at all).

Here's the guide:

http://www.pretentiousname.com/timesync/index.html