Kernel Mustard

I’ve been working with Karin Meier-Magruder from the SDK team at Microsoft to get everyone’s favorite tool, err.exe, [re-]added to the PSDK. She’s working on getting it done, but meanwhile, as a special treat for Kernel Mustard readers, I have a newly updated err.exe ready for download. There’s a EULA inside the .zip that governs the tool’s use.

For those that haven’t used it before, the current err.exe indexes 22,851 error codes from 171 sources. Pass it a magic number from somewhere and it’ll make sense out of it!

Enjoy!

I’ve had a long-running argument with anyone that will listen that multi-core computing will require a fundamentally different programming model. Of course, I’m remotely the only person saying this, but it seems to be a bit of a contentious topic regardless.

I just ran across an article on ArsTechnica in which a Microsoft exec discusses a future version of Windows that deals with massively multi-core computers. There is some interesting stuff in the article. I’d heard through the grapevine that this was underway, and if I weren’t so busy with PhoneFactor, I’d love to code on it!

I worked up a lock-free doubly-linked list last summer, and had intended to try it out in a couple of drivers, but predictably enough, I ran out of time. That, and Doron Holan promised me that it was a waste of time, and who am I to argue with him.

This stuff is going to have a massive impact on usermode software when it eventually happens. For more on the topic, there is a good list of podcasts over at Xerox PARC on the topic, including one by Herb Sutter of Microsoft.