Do Not Lie to Users

Multiple people working on Outlook.com thought this was a reasonable design. After a user deletes an email, then manually goes into the Deleted Items folder, then clicks Delete again, then acknowledges that they wish to Permanently Delete the deleted item: … the item is still not deleted. You can “Recover deleted items” from your Deleted items folder:Continue reading “Do Not Lie to Users”

Troubleshooting Windows 10 Bluescreens

I recently bought a Dell XPS 8900 desktop system with Windows 10. It ran okay for a while, but after enabling Hyper-V, every few minutes the system would freeze for a few seconds and then reboot with no explanation. Looking at the Event Viewer’s Windows Logs > System revealed that the system had bugchecked (blueContinue reading “Troubleshooting Windows 10 Bluescreens”

File Paths in Windows

Handling file-system paths in Windows can have many subtleties, and it’s easy to forget how some of this very intricate system works under the covers. Happily, a .NET developer has started blogging a bit about file paths, presumably as they work to improve .NET’s handling of paths longer than the legacy MAX_PATH limit of 260Continue reading “File Paths in Windows”

Downloads and the Mark-of-the-Web

Last update: October 28, 2025 Background To help protect the user and their device, Windows and its applications will often treat files originating from the Internet more cautiously than files generated locally. The Windows Security Zones determination process is most directly implemented by the MapURLToZone API; that API accepts a URL or a file pathContinue reading “Downloads and the Mark-of-the-Web”