Ok, thanks! That's exactly the detailed explanation I was looking for :). It's nice to know about things not to do, but it's even nicer to know exactly why not to do them.

Can you elaborate on that?

I know it's not proper, but it's in a (internal) library that would be hard to modify. Because using something other than STATIC doesn't appear to cause problems, it seems like there might be a way to get it to work (a define? another header file?). I basically just want to understand why using STATIC causes problems and using anything else doesn't cause problems. I like to know the causes of problems, not just the solutions.

I'm using a library (not easily modified) that does that call. If I change "STATIC" to "STATIC_" (or probably anything else), the problem disappears.

Why does the following code, when running, causes some programs to hang while starting (before presenting any UI), including Windows Explorer/Internet Explorer (when double-clicking an HTML file in Windows Explorer) and the AnalogX PacketMon installer[^]?

#include <iostream>
#include <tchar.h>
#include <windows.h>

int _tmain(int argc, _TCHAR* argv[])
{
HWND gWnd = CreateWindow(_T("STATIC"), _T("SomeWindow"), WS_POPUP, 20, 20, 200, 200, 0, 0, 0, 0);
getchar();
return 0;
}

Doh, can't believe I didn't think of that :-O. Thanks! I actually decide to use FindFirstChangeNotification, because it supports 98/ME.

I'm working on a program that reads a small text file (from AppPath) every x seconds, and is always running on the computer. Since most computers are always on, should I keep that x value as low as possible to reduce wear on the hard drive (and maximize laptop battery life), or is that not really a problem? I currently have x set at 5 seconds, and could go as long as 60 seconds.

Thanks, that function looks to be what I need, but it fails when I use the monitor handle given by EnumDisplayMonitors :(.

Thanks, but unfortunately it still finds the monitor when it's been unplugged :(.

Is it possible to programmatically find out if the monitor is connected to the computer? I would be very grateful if someone could provide that answer!

Is it possible to use XP's built-in text-to-speech functionality in a C++ or C# application, without requiring the user to install any speech redistributable?

Shoot :(. Approximately how difficult to crack is the encryption usually used? Virtually impossible, I'm guessing? No, this is definitely not for cheating; in fact, almost the opposite. I'm trying to decipher the packets broadcast (sent to 255.255.255.255) by Halo 2 (xbox) on a local system-link network. I have two reasons for trying to do this: to make LAN tournaments easier to monitor, and to possibly connect the in-game names of people to the XBC name they use (so I don't have to worry about booting the wrong person).

The following packet (captured by a packet sniffer) is sent by a FPS game server to the client, to list the number of players (~14 in this case) and the current map/gametype. How would I go about deciphering the names of players from this data? Is it encrypted/compressed somehow? 48 00 00 00 9C A0 04 E7 D5 53 A4 2A BE 01 F3 9E H........S.*.... DE D3 4F 1D 47 CF ED 41 AD EF D9 9F DE F1 C9 9E ..O.G..A........ 97 07 31 2B 73 09 4F DF 92 82 E8 24 61 AB F4 3E ..1+s.O....$a..> 80 08 06 FA 77 CF 61 7A A6 3D 83 2B 87 D4 2F 0C ....w.az.=.+../. 76 9F B5 75 83 13 E1 16 B6 AF 5E 2F CA 78 EE 30 v..u......^/.x.0 50 D1 ED 71 83 72 AF FC 3F 39 30 7A B0 39 03 43 P..q.r..?90z.9.C F2 73 3B D7 10 FA 25 A5 51 DD 17 3B 98 07 E2 FE .s;...%.Q..;.... 24 DC DD 68 1D 85 A4 56 FD 86 5C 19 6F 17 18 66 $..h...V..\.o..f B3 60 95 A3 6A D8 EE 66 47 12 CA C8 53 42 E6 96 .`..j..fG...SB.. E0 51 E1 DF 92 3C 03 6B 3E A0 C4 F0 16 CB A5 F9 .Q...<.k>....... DE CC 78 0F 22 31 9D 71 CE 4C A8 3C 0C 39 7E 57 ..x."1.q.L.<.9~W 10 93 AD C1 DF 6B 2E 7E 67 D9 19 E4 A2 16 AE 7E .....k.~g......~ 66 8D D7 73 DD 32 B2 E0 3C 9E 44 BC 90 D0 F8 1E f..s.2..<.D..... D2 B6 AA 88 85 E8 64 25 C6 EA 13 09 07 FD 0A 44 ......d%.......D 37 A1 7B 13 07 14 91 4E 3F 45 33 7E C2 BC AF 75 7.{....N?E3~...u 2E 9F 50 66 D9 EA B2 B2 51 42 72 54 13 33 AB 99 ..Pf....QBrT.3.. 2A 72 4D C9 33 44 92 82 12 8F A8 E3 22 30 14 56 *rM.3D......"0.V AB 69 FD 3F 41 50 3D 47 BE 15 BF 5F 89 7E EB F9 .i.?AP=G..._.~.. 85 1E 99 FB BF 00 29 1F 78 E0 05 E5 1A 31 BB CC ......).x....1.. 13 06 CC DE 3C AC 73 DE 41 17 F1 14 AC 1A 64 04 ....<.s.A.....d. 6B 0B 97 7C 95 9F 7C E5 F8 36 7E ED D4 7B 22 3B k..|..|..6~..{"; FB 08 49 D9 C5 D5 02 C8 69 66 59 4E 3E 70 19 00 ..I.....ifYN>p.. 9B 4F 18 2E 22 52 D4 B2 57 49 AD 1F F8 3B 04 A9 .O.."R..WI...;.. 90 9B F3 4B 83 D9 23 F9 E2 A3 0F B6 52 D8 F8 0E ...K..#.....R... 6D 7E D7 01 23 C1 E1 A1 11 6D 98 FB 3B BE 44 F4 m~..#....m..;.D. 47 C2 CA 47 9C 93 CE 1A 6E 71 1E EA 6E 52 2C 8D G..G....nq..nR,. FC B3 82 59 F9 06 F4 0F 6D FB 3B C1 21 83 49 11 ...Y....m.;.!.I. 1C 5B 32 12 D1 02 22 6D E7 57 D1 20 16 69 E4 2C .[2..."m.W. .i., 51 45 40 88 5A 5D AF F5 13 95 16 75 8C C6 B9 C3 QE@.Z].....u.... 93 A6 B6 3E E0 73 0C 65 F2 E2 56 70 DE 8B 4E 8C ...>.s.e..Vp..N. 78 E1 A3 75 B4 A1 B6 7A 43 68 0A 7B 6E 6E 1F 46 x..u...zCh.{nn.F FF 3B 6F 30 7F DF 55 45 61 3A 6E 64 36 57 EE 2C .;o0..UEa:nd6W., C0 73 B3 8A B1 C9 A2 1D 8E 44 94 EB E7 A2 C5 BB .s.......D...... 99 54 DF 37 44 A1 F3 45 9A 4F FB D6 15 C8 61 8D .T.7D..E.O

I actually finally got it working, by putting extern "C" int __cdecl _fseeki64(FILE *, __int64, int); extern "C" __int64 __cdecl _ftelli64(FILE *); in my header :D.

I need to make a program that uses fxxxx (fopen, ftell, fseek, fread, etc...) functions to support >2gb files. How would I do that? I see _fseeki64.c and _ftelli64.c in crt\src\, but can't figure out how to use those functions in my program (no matter what I do, I get an unresolved external symbol error). A Google search on those functions turns up virtually nothing :(.

Thanks; do you know of any resources or tutorials or source code on that subject?

More precisely, it is to affect Windows timers, so that timer events happen faster than they normally would. Beyond that, I don't know; I'm researching this for someone else, and that's all the info they've given me.

Is it possible to (programmatically) make a computer's system clock (time) go a set amount faster, like making the computer's clock move 1100ms every real second so that for instance, if I started speeding it up at 10:00:00, the computer's clock reads 10:00:11 while my (correct) watch reads 10:00:10?

Nevermind, figured it out: I use the normal COM code to find a shortcut's target, and just omit IShellLink::Resolve :).

How can I find out the extension of the file pointed to by a shortcut? IShellLink::Resolve can do that, but it has a lot of overhead. Basically, I'm going through the contents of a directory and only showing files of certain types, but I also want to show shortcuts which point to files of those certain types.