Inside and Out...

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WinToolZone - Spelunking Microsoft Technologies

I work as a developer on the Common Language Runtime (CLR) team, specifically in the areas of exception handling and CLR hosting.

Disclaimer

The information in this weblog is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights. This weblog does not represent the thoughts, intentions, plans or strategies of my employer. It is solely my opinion. Inappropriate comments will be deleted at the authors discretion. All code samples are provided "AS IS" without warranty of any kind, either express or implied, including but not limited to the implied warranties of merchantability and/or fitness for a particular purpose.

Inside and Out... An attempt to understand technology better...

Jan 08

[Article] Authoring a Stack Walker for X86

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Stack walking is second nature to debuggers. But if you had more interest in it than just debugging and either: wanted to know what stack walking is about, or wanted to know how stack walking is implemented, or wanted to know how a custom stack walker can be authored for your application then you might find the article, Authoring a Stack Walker for ......

Posted On Monday, January 7, 2008 4:48 AM 32bit , Articles , Downloads , Development , Windows API

Dec 07

[Download] MemAnalysis - Native memory leak analysis tool

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Advanced Windows Debugging got me hooked onto Detours and that led me to experiment with it a bit more. It resulted in this. Over the past three days, I have been working on using Detours to build a memory leak detection tool. MemAnalysis is finally done (v1, that is) and can track memory allocation and release when done using the following APIs: VirtualAlloc ......

Posted On Wednesday, December 26, 2007 2:58 PM Downloads , Development , Windows API

Dec 07

Using Detours for API interception

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Detours is a very interesting library from Microsoft Research that allows you to intercept Windows API calls that an application makes and redirect them to your code that can then: do some pre-and-post processing work around the call to the original API, and/or customize what is returned to the caller of the API This does not involve accessing original ......

Posted On Sunday, December 23, 2007 11:18 AM Downloads , Development , Windows API

Dec 07

Advanced Windows Debugging

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The book is a must have for every serious Windows developer!

Posted On Saturday, December 22, 2007 9:00 PM Development

Dec 07

Integrating Windows Live Authentication in your application

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For one of my pet projects I am writing, I was contemplating how to integrate Windows Live Authentication with my standalone application, similar to Windows Live Messenger. Turns out, it is really easy! Below are the three steps that were needed for the integration: Download the Windows Live Client SDK from here and install it. Create a new project ......

Posted On Sunday, December 16, 2007 11:42 PM Development

Dec 07

[Article] AppDomains and Unhandled Exception Notifications

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One always strives to write exception safe application but there are times when an exception can go unhandled. In the .NET Framework, the AppDomain class exposes the UnhandledException event that can be used by by the managed application to know when an exception has gone unhandled. In the writeup, AppDomains and Unhandled Exception Notifications, I ......

Posted On Saturday, December 15, 2007 9:46 PM Development

Mar 07

[Download] TransNTFS v1.0.0.1 - support for folders, symbolic and hard links and more

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I have updated TransNTFS, my managed implementation for the transactional NTFS APIs that have been introduced with Windows Vista. TransNTFS now also supports the following operations under a transaction: Creation and deletion of folders Deletion of files Creation of symbolic links Creation of hard links It comes with complete documentation (as always) ......

Posted On Sunday, March 18, 2007 10:09 AM Development

Mar 07

[Download] TransNTFS - Managed implementation of Transactional NTFS (TxF) APIs

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Sometime back, I had made a post regarding a native C++ class I had authored for using some of the Transactional NTFS (TxF)APIs introduced in Windows Vista. Almost two weeks from that post, I just finished my managed implementation, TransNTFS, that enables you to use the TxF APIs from managed code. As always, Managed C++ enabled the implementation with ......

Posted On Thursday, March 15, 2007 2:30 PM Development

Mar 07

Programming the Transactional NTFS (TxF)

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One of the key new features of Windows Vista is a component called the Kernel Transaction Manager (KTM) that brings inherent support for transactional development in not just the kernel-mode but also for user mode. Infact, NTFS has been enhanced to use and support transactions such that couple of new APIs (e.g. CopyFileTransacted, MoveFileTransacted ......

Posted On Thursday, March 1, 2007 11:37 PM Development

Feb 07

Article: Customizing AppDomain Creation

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Did you have a scenario where you wished you could customize the creation of AppDomains? Or, you could control how many AppDomains any code that runs in your application context (e.g. if you are writing a plugin load framework) could create? Or, how about reusing AppDomains for various assemblies? I have just finished an article on how any of the above ......

Posted On Monday, February 26, 2007 7:56 PM Development

Feb 07

How the SSCLI [a.k.a. Rotor] managed "new" works

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One of the best ways to understand how the CLR works internally is to have a look at the SSCLI [a.k.a Rotor] source code. In How the SSCLI [a.k.a. Rotor] managed "new" works, I have used Rotor source code to discuss what happens behind the scenes when you use the managed new operator to instantiate a managed type, discussing implications of object size, ......

Posted On Tuesday, February 13, 2007 2:48 AM Development

Jul 07

[Download] PocketMaps 2.0 - with GPS support!

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Last week I updated PocketMaps to support GPS. Once the GPS receiver is connected to your Windows Mobile device, PocketMaps can: Map your current location on the map Auto-refresh the map as you move to plot your move Display details regarding your current location, like altitude, wind speed, etc. You can download it from http://www.wintoolzone.com/... ......

Posted On Wednesday, July 4, 2007 9:26 PM

Jun 07

[Download] Pocket Maps - mapping addresses on the Pocket PC

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I just finished authoring PocketMaps, a .NET CF 2.0 based application for Windows Mobile 5.0 based Pocket PC devices that does address mapping on the device using the Yahoo! Map Image API. You can enter the address as free text, or with city/state/zipcode details or as latitude/longitude combination and PocketMaps will map it for you. Particularly useful ......

Posted On Monday, June 25, 2007 9:28 PM

Jun 07

Enumerating AppDomains - I

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Surprisingly, enumerating AppDomains is not that straightforward. The System.AppDomain type does not expose functionality to enumerate them at all. The way to enumerate them will be to use the V1 Hosting interface, ICorRuntimeHost and then invoke the EnumDomains and NextDomain methods against it to get the list. If you are using CLR 2.0, you needn't ......

Posted On Saturday, June 9, 2007 8:45 PM

May 07

Lessons in Exception Handling

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Working on the CLR's exception handling subsystem is not just challenging but also gives unique opportunities to understand how the various exception handling subsystems (e.g. SEH, C++ EH, etc) work, and in particular, how they interoperate with one another. It was such case that had me discuss one such issue with Kevin, development lead of the JIT, ......

Posted On Sunday, May 13, 2007 4:50 PM

Jan 06

Windows Communication Foundation (Indigo) India Tour

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[Original Post Date: 9th November 2005] Windows Communication Foundation, formerly codenamed Indigo, is the future of Microsoft distributed computing platform. And to take it to the next level in India, we are having Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) Tour across the month of November. The dates are as below: City Date Bangalore 10th November Pune ......

Posted On Thursday, January 5, 2006 10:03 AM

Mar 07

[Download] NotifyOnEmail - Get notified on email about SMS and Missed Calls

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[Originally posted on 5th June 2006] I just finished off with TechED 2006 India at Delhi and had sometime at hand today before TechED starts at Pune tomorrow. So, I thought about writing an application I had been waiting to develop. There are times when we forget our phones at home. However, we continue to get SMS and phone calls on our device while ......

Posted On Thursday, March 29, 2007 2:46 PM

WinToolZone.Bluetooth - Support for authentication

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[Originally posted on 10th July 2006] WinToolZone.Bluetooth now has authentication support. You can use a BluetoothDevice object (which is used represent a Bluetooth device that has been detected) and use the SendPassKey method to send a pass key for authentication: . 1: bth.Devices[ i ].SendPassKey("123", null); Also, I have added OnIncomingAuthenticationReq... ......

Posted On Thursday, March 29, 2007 2:42 PM

WinToolZone.Bluetooth - Added device enumeration support

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[Originally posted on 6th July 2006] WinToolZone.Bluetooth, the managed Bluetooth API for the desktop that I am working on, now has the support for enumerating devices as well. The snippet below exemplifies it: . 1: Bluetooth bth = new Bluetooth(); 2: 3: // EnumRadios(bth); 4: 5: if (bth.RefreshDevices(false, true, true, true, true, null) == false) ......

Posted On Thursday, March 29, 2007 2:39 PM

WinToolZone.Bluetooth - Managed Bluetooth API for the desktop

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[Originally posted on 5th July 2006] One of the communication protocols not present in .NET Framework class libraries is Bluetooth. So today, I started to work on my implementation of a managed API for Bluetooth programming - WinToolZone.Bluetooth. I am authoring it using Managed C++ and leveraging the Microsoft Bluetooth stack APIs. I just completed ......

Posted On Thursday, March 29, 2007 2:28 PM

DesktopSMS - Send, Receive and Reply to SMS from the desktop

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[Originally posted on 31st July 2006] Ever wanted to compose SMS from the ease of desktop instead of the phone? Wanted to be notified on the desktop, while you are working, when a SMS is received and reply to it from there itself? DesktopSMS, for Windows Mobile 5.0 based SmartPhone and PocketPC devices, will let you do just that! Based upon .NET Framework ......

Posted On Thursday, March 29, 2007 2:24 PM

[Download] TransNTFS v1.0.0.1 - support for folders, symbolic and hard links and more