Posts by snowdude

Give Microsoft a break

My kid has been using the edu version of Minecraft in school this year and he's loved it. They've been building virtual Anderson shelters as part of a WWII project. They talk about what would've been in them, location away from the house, the visibility from the air, how many people would need to fit inside etc. and most importantly he's enthusiastic about the project and really learning the subject.

Making school more exciting for children is a good thing and Microsoft's intentions in providing fun and engaging tools should be praised.

SafeDllSearchMode anyone?

The majority of this issue was addressed with XP and sp2 with a setting called SafeDllSearchMode (which is enabled by default).

With SafeDllSearchMode Windows only looks for a DLL in the current directory AFTER it has searched the app folder and system folders but, and this could a problem, before it searches the PATH.

Therefore if an app tries loading a DLL that it simply expects to be in the path but there is a DLL of the same name in the current directory you could be in for a world of pain. Not quite sure why any app would need to load a DLL from the current directory and therefore why it wasn't removed when SafeDllSearchMode was added.

Check your apps!

7-zip?

7-zip is the first app installed on every PC for me. Then (in no particular order):

FileZilla

NotePad++

Agent Ransack

Everything else is installed as needed.

ps. iTunes? Really?