← Back to context

Comment by wfunction

13 years ago

> not just MSSQL team that can peek at the source code and cook up a magic combination of function arguments that does not return undocumented

Don't leave us hanging... what examples are you referring to?

18 comments

wfunction

Reply
shubb  13 years ago

One problem that the WINE project (windows emulator for unix)has is that windows is full of undocumented APIs, some of which might be really quite useful, which are used by windows internal developers.

For WINE, if you are going to write an emulator that runs Microsoft code (like the .net framework, or notepad.exe), you need to find the correct behavior of these undocumented APIs by trial and error.

For a developer on Windows, it is perhaps frustrating that MS identifies and solves problems with it's platform, but doesn't publicly release these solutions to you.

I work for some random company that makes an SDK, although I mostly make products using it. Many of our best features are hidden - we don't ship the header files with the SDK, but the symbols are there in the binaries. Someone doesn't think they are useful enough to justify the testing expense for a full release. I guess MS have the same thing.

  • randomfool  13 years ago

    No. You can complain about insufficiently documented APIs, or internal APIs that you wish you could use but are not documented, but please do not complain about undocumented APIs that are used by Microsoft applications outside of Windows.

    Ever since the monopoly rulings against Microsoft, they have had extremely strict internal controls preventing non-OS code from using undocumented APIs. If a DLL or EXE does not ship on the Windows client install disk, it cannot reference APIs which are not documented in MSDN. Full stop.

    You're referencing an API that inadvertently didn't get documented, but everyone knows about it, has blogged about it and lots of articles mentioning to use it? Too bad. Either stop using the API or delay release by 3 months for the next MSDN update.

  • mikevm  13 years ago

    >One problem that the WINE project (windows emulator for unix)

    Wine Is Not an Emulator.

    • fnordfnordfnord  13 years ago

      What shall we call WINE then? A "pretender"? I'm serious btw. I've never seen a good concise explanation of the way WINE works in comparison to say, an emulator. I have a fairly good idea myself, but I wouldn't want to have to give more than a very brief talk over it.

      10 replies →