Approaches for converting DIRS/SOURCES projects to WDK 8+

Don_Burn · December 5, 2013, 3:52pm

Peter,

Actually I do mean that. Of course I have no call to build a
standalone KMDF driver without XP support since the time the Win8 WDK first
became available, so it may be quite possible that your scenario does work
as you say, I just haven’t had any reason to go there.

When I asked the general question I was looking for guidance since all
the projects have been royal pains in the ass to setup. Now some specific
problems that I keep encountering with Visual Studio projects (whether they
be drivers or anything else), that maybe someone can help with, are list
below. Remember as I stated in my initial question, VS was essentially a
text editor for me until the latest WDK.

Is there some magic trick to get setting changes across all targets?
It seems like half the time I think I am doing it, it turns out that it only
worked on one architecture ./ one Windows version and only checked or free
but not both builds.
Is there a handy list of environment variables I can always trust
for settings? It seems even if I am careful, I will get a call from a
client that we just did a minor change and everything is horribly broken.
I get the project back from them and it is littered with hard-coded paths
which means I have to take a long time to get things even build.
Is there a good way to compare project files? With
SOURCES/Makefile.inc this was a standard source compare and everything was
pretty easy to spot. Now it is all XML and half the time it goes into my
clients system and comes back to me wildly reordered. Once I do find a
difference it can be damm hard to ensure that I fix the comparable settings
the same way.

I have more but these are generic to all projects even the
theoretically simple case that Peter gives below (I have done the below with
applications, if not with a driver).

Don Burn
Windows Filesystem and Driver Consulting
Website: http://www.windrvr.com
Blog: http://msmvps.com/blogs/WinDrvr

-----Original Message-----
From: xxxxx@lists.osr.com
[mailto:xxxxx@lists.osr.com] On Behalf Of xxxxx@osr.com
Sent: Thursday, December 05, 2013 12:22 PM
To: Windows System Software Devs Interest List
Subject: RE:[ntdev] Approaches for converting DIRS/SOURCES projects to WDK
8+

(Emphasis in the above is mine)

SURELY you don’t mean that. SURELY you’ve joined the Dr. Newcomer school of
hyperbole and histrionics here.

“The simplest Visual Studio driver project”? Seriously?

How’s this:

Run Visual Studio
Do File… New… Project.
Select Visual C++, Windows Driver, WDF
Select Kernel Mode Driver (KMDF)
Click OK.

Done.

I *think* that’s “the simplest VS driver project” – I think.

I just did it and timed it. Less than one minute, total. This includes the
time it took VS 2013 to load on my machine.

OH, wait… you meant create your OWN driver project with files you already
HAVE? Well, that’s different:

1), 2), 3)… same as above

select Kernel Mode Driver, Empty (KMDF)
Click OK
In Solution Explorer, right-click “Source Files”… Click Add. Select
your file.
Repeat for other files in your project (selecting “Header Files” or
“Source Files” as appropriate)
Under “Driver Files” edit the provided INF or substitute your own.

Done.

I just did this on my machine and timed it. Less than 3 minutes, total.

IF YOU HAVE A COMPLEX PROJECT it WILL take some time to convert. But how
can this not be the case? You’re dramatically changing build systems, from
one that was thrown together with existing tools by Steve Woods in 1989 to
something that, you know, is relatively modern, well-documented, and
flexible. It’s going to take time.

I GET that it’s new and you don’t know how to use it. Shit, *I* barely know
how to use it. I have to constantly refer back to SNoone’s article in The
NT Insider (http://insider.osr.com/2013/ntinsider_2013_01.pdf) to remember
all those “elements”… but I rarely have to. I just follow the steps I
outlined above.

Really.

And (as I’ve said before) our clients (from the largest to the smallest who
don’t know anything about drivers) LOVE it. They all have Visual Studio.
They all know how to use it, more or less. I just tell them “add in the
DMK, open the solution, and rock on” – FAR easier than explaining which
command prompt window to open and type “bcz”…

And, finally: NO. Though it generally works for me, perhaps with a tweak or
two, DO NOT use the converter for anything other than “I want to try this
out” type of builds. The projects it produces are NOT a good long-term
solution, IMHO.

Peter
OSR

NTDEV is sponsored by OSR

Visit the list at: http://www.osronline.com/showlists.cfm?list=ntdev

OSR is HIRING!! See http://www.osr.com/careers

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http://www.osr.com/seminars

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Doron_Holan · December 5, 2013, 3:59pm

in the configurator UI, you need to pick Configuration: All Configurations, Platform: All Platforms
not exactly sure since it is usually a different question, as in “is there an env var for X?”. I am pretty sure that 99% of the WDK7 env vars are in the 8 and 8.1 kits. Certainly common stuff is all there like $(DDK_INC_PATH) and the like
can’t help you here, although I have not seen wild reordering if you stick to the IDE editor. If you hand edit and then edit the IDE, the IDE will rewrite the according to its own ordering of evaluating the project. subsequent IDE edits are not wildly reordered. The msbuild OM is programmatically available, you could easily walk the evaluated file’s nodes and elements, sort them and then diff the sorted results from two evals.

d

-----Original Message-----
From: xxxxx@lists.osr.com [mailto:xxxxx@lists.osr.com] On Behalf Of Don Burn
Sent: Thursday, December 5, 2013 12:51 PM
To: Windows System Software Devs Interest List
Subject: RE: [ntdev] Approaches for converting DIRS/SOURCES projects to WDK 8+

Peter,

Actually I do mean that. Of course I have no call to build a standalone KMDF driver without XP support since the time the Win8 WDK first became available, so it may be quite possible that your scenario does work as you say, I just haven’t had any reason to go there.

When I asked the general question I was looking for guidance since all
the projects have been royal pains in the ass to setup. Now some specific
problems that I keep encountering with Visual Studio projects (whether they be drivers or anything else), that maybe someone can help with, are list below. Remember as I stated in my initial question, VS was essentially a text editor for me until the latest WDK.

Is there some magic trick to get setting changes across all targets?
It seems like half the time I think I am doing it, it turns out that it only worked on one architecture ./ one Windows version and only checked or free but not both builds.
Is there a handy list of environment variables I can always trust for settings? It seems even if I am careful, I will get a call from a client that we just did a minor change and everything is horribly broken.
I get the project back from them and it is littered with hard-coded paths which means I have to take a long time to get things even build.
Is there a good way to compare project files? With SOURCES/Makefile.inc this was a standard source compare and everything was pretty easy to spot. Now it is all XML and half the time it goes into my clients system and comes back to me wildly reordered. Once I do find a difference it can be damm hard to ensure that I fix the comparable settings the same way.

I have more but these are generic to all projects even the theoretically simple case that Peter gives below (I have done the below with applications, if not with a driver).

Don Burn
Windows Filesystem and Driver Consulting
Website: http://www.windrvr.com
Blog: http://msmvps.com/blogs/WinDrvr

-----Original Message-----
From: xxxxx@lists.osr.com
[mailto:xxxxx@lists.osr.com] On Behalf Of xxxxx@osr.com
Sent: Thursday, December 05, 2013 12:22 PM
To: Windows System Software Devs Interest List
Subject: RE:[ntdev] Approaches for converting DIRS/SOURCES projects to WDK
8+

(Emphasis in the above is mine)

SURELY you don’t mean that. SURELY you’ve joined the Dr. Newcomer school of
hyperbole and histrionics here.

“The simplest Visual Studio driver project”? Seriously?

How’s this:

Run Visual Studio
Do File… New… Project.
Select Visual C++, Windows Driver, WDF
Select Kernel Mode Driver (KMDF)
Click OK.

Done.

I *think* that’s “the simplest VS driver project” – I think.

I just did it and timed it. Less than one minute, total. This includes the
time it took VS 2013 to load on my machine.

OH, wait… you meant create your OWN driver project with files you already
HAVE? Well, that’s different:

1), 2), 3)… same as above

select Kernel Mode Driver, Empty (KMDF)
Click OK
In Solution Explorer, right-click “Source Files”… Click Add. Select
your file.
Repeat for other files in your project (selecting “Header Files” or
“Source Files” as appropriate)
Under “Driver Files” edit the provided INF or substitute your own.

Done.

I just did this on my machine and timed it. Less than 3 minutes, total.

IF YOU HAVE A COMPLEX PROJECT it WILL take some time to convert. But how
can this not be the case? You’re dramatically changing build systems, from
one that was thrown together with existing tools by Steve Woods in 1989 to
something that, you know, is relatively modern, well-documented, and
flexible. It’s going to take time.

I GET that it’s new and you don’t know how to use it. Shit, *I* barely know
how to use it. I have to constantly refer back to SNoone’s article in The
NT Insider (http://insider.osr.com/2013/ntinsider_2013_01.pdf) to remember
all those “elements”… but I rarely have to. I just follow the steps I
outlined above.

Really.

And (as I’ve said before) our clients (from the largest to the smallest who
don’t know anything about drivers) LOVE it. They all have Visual Studio.
They all know how to use it, more or less. I just tell them “add in the
DMK, open the solution, and rock on” – FAR easier than explaining which
command prompt window to open and type “bcz”…

And, finally: NO. Though it generally works for me, perhaps with a tweak or
two, DO NOT use the converter for anything other than “I want to try this
out” type of builds. The projects it produces are NOT a good long-term
solution, IMHO.

Peter
OSR

NTDEV is sponsored by OSR

Visit the list at: http://www.osronline.com/showlists.cfm?list=ntdev

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Visit the list at: http://www.osronline.com/showlists.cfm?list=ntdev

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For our schedule of WDF, WDM, debugging and other seminars visit:
http://www.osr.com/seminars

To unsubscribe, visit the List Server section of OSR Online at http://www.osronline.com/page.cfm?name=ListServer

Tim_Roberts · December 5, 2013, 4:00pm

Don Burn wrote:

Is there some magic trick to get setting changes across all targets?
It seems like half the time I think I am doing it, it turns out that it only
worked on one architecture ./ one Windows version and only checked or free
but not both builds.

I have had that problem with Visual Studio for a long time – I always
forget to pick “all configurations” before I start editing. That’s why
I now do virtually all of my project file tweaking in vim. I modify the
sections to eliminate the duplication, so I get one for
invariant properties, one for $(Configuration)==Release, one for
$(Configuration)==Debug, one for $(Platform)==Win32, etc. That way, I
only have one place to tweak. Third Normal Form.

> 3. Is there a good way to compare project files? With
> SOURCES/Makefile.inc this was a standard source compare and everything was
> pretty easy to spot. Now it is all XML and half the time it goes into my
> clients system and comes back to me wildly reordered. Once I do find a
> difference it can be damm hard to ensure that I fix the comparable settings
> the same way.

That’s odd, because the IDE should be saving the properties in the same
order every time.

–
Tim Roberts, xxxxx@probo.com
Providenza & Boekelheide, Inc.

Maxim_S_Shatskih · December 5, 2013, 4:01pm

I agree with everything Calvin said.
“Calvin Guan (news)” wrote in message news:xxxxx@ntdev…

If you want to do sonething with msbuild, you can ask Google and you’ll get an answer.

[/quote]

I need to install Visual Studio Xyz , WDK, SDK which is a pain in the ass for me. And finding the right button in VS IDE to click is like finding the right stock to buy.

If you want to do something with sources/dirs, you could ask here on ntdev and hope somebody reads your post, knows the answer, and has the time to answer your post.

[/quote]

I just sync or “cp -R” DDK from my source server. Don’t remember how to do something in sources/dirs? Not a problem, makefile.new and friends tell me everything that I need.

I did not ever really think that translation from DIRS/SOURCES was going to be that useful.

[/quote]

It’s a life saver for me. Sorry, Dave. I have to challenge it so that nmake2msbuild won’t get killed.

Calvin

Peter_Viscarola_OSR · December 5, 2013, 4:21pm

Good HEAVENS… I STILL have this problem. All the time. Arrrgh!

And I at least occasionally have the REVERSE problem. I have “All Configurations” selected, and I change something for a SPECIFIC configuration, and now I’m building the wrong thing for every OTHER target. Double Arrrgh!

That’s a STATUS_STUPID_USER error… Nothing to be done about those, except clue-up the user.

Peter
OSR

Doron_Holan · December 5, 2013, 5:05pm

> That’s a STATUS_STUPID_USER error… Nothing to be done about those, except clue-up the user.

I have found that everyone messes this up. As such, I blame the UX/UI in this instance, not the user

d

-----Original Message-----
From: xxxxx@lists.osr.com [mailto:xxxxx@lists.osr.com] On Behalf Of xxxxx@osr.com
Sent: Thursday, December 5, 2013 1:22 PM
To: Windows System Software Devs Interest List
Subject: RE:[ntdev] Approaches for converting DIRS/SOURCES projects to WDK 8+

Good HEAVENS… I STILL have this problem. All the time. Arrrgh!

And I at least occasionally have the REVERSE problem. I have “All Configurations” selected, and I change something for a SPECIFIC configuration, and now I’m building the wrong thing for every OTHER target. Double Arrrgh!

That’s a STATUS_STUPID_USER error… Nothing to be done about those, except clue-up the user.

Peter
OSR

NTDEV is sponsored by OSR

Visit the list at: http://www.osronline.com/showlists.cfm?list=ntdev

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http://www.osr.com/seminars

To unsubscribe, visit the List Server section of OSR Online at http://www.osronline.com/page.cfm?name=ListServer

mm1 · December 5, 2013, 5:30pm

+1

In general, I think the point and click nature here lends itself to
the idea that managing build configuration is easy and just works.
For people who are diligent, it works out, but it’s a lot of work; for
others, not so much.

I use CMake to generate these things and one if the things it does is
generate dependency graphs. On a large project over time, the graphs
have to be seen to be believed.

Mm

Sent from my Verizon Wireless 4G LTE DROID

Doron Holan wrote:

> That’s a STATUS_STUPID_USER error… Nothing to be done about those, except clue-up the user.

I have found that everyone messes this up. As such, I blame the UX/UI
in this instance, not the user

d

-----Original Message-----
From: xxxxx@lists.osr.com
[mailto:xxxxx@lists.osr.com] On Behalf Of
xxxxx@osr.com
Sent: Thursday, December 5, 2013 1:22 PM
To: Windows System Software Devs Interest List
Subject: RE:[ntdev] Approaches for converting DIRS/SOURCES projects to WDK 8+

Good HEAVENS… I STILL have this problem. All the time. Arrrgh!

And I at least occasionally have the REVERSE problem. I have “All
Configurations” selected, and I change something for a SPECIFIC
configuration, and now I’m building the wrong thing for every OTHER
target. Double Arrrgh!

That’s a STATUS_STUPID_USER error… Nothing to be done about those,
except clue-up the user.

Peter
OSR

—
NTDEV is sponsored by OSR

Visit the list at: http://www.osronline.com/showlists.cfm?list=ntdev

OSR is HIRING!! See http://www.osr.com/careers

For our schedule of WDF, WDM, debugging and other seminars visit:
http://www.osr.com/seminars

To unsubscribe, visit the List Server section of OSR Online at
http://www.osronline.com/page.cfm?name=ListServer

—
NTDEV is sponsored by OSR

Visit the list at: http://www.osronline.com/showlists.cfm?list=ntdev

OSR is HIRING!! See http://www.osr.com/careers

For our schedule of WDF, WDM, debugging and other seminars visit:
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OSR_Community_User · December 5, 2013, 5:46pm

On 12/4/2013 8:12 PM, xxxxx@osr.com wrote:

If you want to do sonething with msbuild, you can ask Google and you’ll get an answer. If you want to do something with sources/dirs, you could ask here on ntdev and hope somebody reads your post, knows the answer, and has the time to answer your post. I guess you prefer to take your chances here, huh?

There are just a couple of problems I’ve found with the new system:

The MSBuild SignFile task doesn’t support specifying the
CrossCertificate, and doesn’t pause between retries.
The message compiler task doesn’t check input timestamps, so always
rebuilds the outputs, causing further files to become outdated.

I’ve solved both those with custom tasks that replace the built-in ones.

–
Bruce

Doron_Holan · December 5, 2013, 7:47pm

These kinds of things the WDK team can fix if we know about them. Please communicate them when you find them and we can react accordingly.

d

-----Original Message-----
From: xxxxx@lists.osr.com [mailto:xxxxx@lists.osr.com] On Behalf Of Bruce Cran
Sent: Thursday, December 5, 2013 2:46 PM
To: Windows System Software Devs Interest List
Subject: Re: [ntdev] Approaches for converting DIRS/SOURCES projects to WDK 8+

On 12/4/2013 8:12 PM, xxxxx@osr.com wrote:

If you want to do sonething with msbuild, you can ask Google and you’ll get an answer. If you want to do something with sources/dirs, you could ask here on ntdev and hope somebody reads your post, knows the answer, and has the time to answer your post. I guess you prefer to take your chances here, huh?

There are just a couple of problems I’ve found with the new system:

The MSBuild SignFile task doesn’t support specifying the CrossCertificate, and doesn’t pause between retries.
The message compiler task doesn’t check input timestamps, so always rebuilds the outputs, causing further files to become outdated.

I’ve solved both those with custom tasks that replace the built-in ones.

–
Bruce

NTDEV is sponsored by OSR

Visit the list at: http://www.osronline.com/showlists.cfm?list=ntdev

OSR is HIRING!! See http://www.osr.com/careers

For our schedule of WDF, WDM, debugging and other seminars visit:
http://www.osr.com/seminars

To unsubscribe, visit the List Server section of OSR Online at http://www.osronline.com/page.cfm?name=ListServer

Pavel_A1 · December 5, 2013, 10:35pm

On 05-Dec-2013 03:18, Maxim S. Shatskih wrote:

> I used the File->Open->Convert from Sources/Dirs, then spent a week fixing all the errors

For such, I would not do convert but would re-create the project from scratch using the same source files.

type WizardEx.bat

echo Welcome to the SOURCES conversion wizard, Express edition!
if not exist sources (echo Nothing to do & goto :eof)
echo It looks like you have a SOURCES file here in %cd%.
echo Re-create the VS project yourself.

– pa

Pavel_A1 · December 6, 2013, 8:01am

On 06-Dec-2013 00:04, Doron Holan wrote:

> That’s a STATUS_STUPID_USER error… Nothing to be done about those, except clue-up the user.

I have found that everyone messes this up. As such, I blame the UX/UI in this instance, not the user

+1. The knee reflex of checking the configurations dropbox comes only
after a dozen of projects or so. /* and, unfortunately, Eclipse CDT has
copied this “design gem” from VC++ as well */

– pa

Maxim_S_Shatskih · December 6, 2013, 8:27am

> +1. The knee reflex of checking the configurations dropbox comes only

after a dozen of projects or so.

Yes, I remember this VC++'s (mis)feature since I was an active user of that product in 1990ies. When you update build settings, always update ALL configurations.

Lots of bad things team-wise - including breaking the builds - occured due to people forgetting this rule.

Given the arcane and hardly-human-readable format of the project file - this is THE issue.

With THIS bad issues on build management, and with debugger which is a pretty toy compared to WinDbg - I was very glad to only use this software as a text editor the last 13 years. I’ve changed several - KDE Kate (yes, on Windows), Notepad++ etc - but only MSVC and Notepad++ are good for me.

/* and, unfortunately, Eclipse CDT has
copied this “design gem” from VC++ as well */

Vice versa I think. I think MS is copy-pasting Eclipse’s features and not vice versa.

–
Maxim S. Shatskih
Microsoft MVP on File System And Storage
xxxxx@storagecraft.com
http://www.storagecraft.com

Pavel_A1 · December 6, 2013, 11:21am

On 06-Dec-2013 15:27, Maxim S. Shatskih wrote:

Given the arcane and hardly-human-readable format of the project file - this is THE issue.
XML is not human-readable at all So often xml files become what you
in Russia call “explosion on a spaghetti factory” - especially in
Eclipse. Maybe it’s time to consider YAML.

I think MS is copy-pasting Eclipse’s features and not vice versa.

Only in later versions, since 2010. But otherwise, the VC2013 GUI is
just beautiful and improves with every release. Eclipse is, er,
eclipsed. Their underlying build engines have some common roots (NAnt?)

– pa

OSR_Community_User · December 6, 2013, 9:03pm

> Given the arcane and hardly-human-readable format of the project file

this is THE issue.

Do people in the 21st century really want to study and hand edit incredibly complex project files that are miles long? It would be going back to the days before WYSIWYG where you had to create documents using a markup language.

With THIS bad issues on build management, and with debugger which is a
pretty toy compared to WinDbg

Using both on a daily basis it is clear as day the VS debugger is miles ahead of the joke windbg. I remember when I once complained you couldn’t do something as simple as hover the mouse over a variable to see its value with windbg and everyone got on my case that such a feature couldn’t possibly work in the kernel, pffft. The misguided bias towards a completely inferior product is shocking.

Calvin_Guan-3 · December 6, 2013, 10:43pm

Well, during the days that I had to debug a lot of remotes sitting in rainy
Redmond, WA from sunny SoCal here, all I had was a text mode kd
prompt. It’s easy to communicate findings to MSFT folks by pasting kd
command outputs. When I use WinDbg GUI, I was mainly stuck in the kd cmd
window unless I need to step through my src.

I guess I need to try the fancy debugger in VS. Does it support kd command?

Calvin

On Fri, Dec 6, 2013 at 6:04 PM, wrote:

> > Given the arcane and hardly-human-readable format of the project file
> > - this is THE issue.
>
> Do people in the 21st century really want to study and hand edit
> incredibly complex project files that are miles long? It would be going
> back to the days before WYSIWYG where you had to create documents using a
> markup language.
>
> > With THIS bad issues on build management, and with debugger which is a
> > pretty toy compared to WinDbg
>
> Using both on a daily basis it is clear as day the VS debugger is miles
> ahead of the joke windbg. I remember when I once complained you couldn’t do
> something as simple as hover the mouse over a variable to see its value
> with windbg and everyone got on my case that such a feature couldn’t
> possibly work in the kernel, pffft. The misguided bias towards a completely
> inferior product is shocking.
>
>
> —
> NTDEV is sponsored by OSR
>
> Visit the list at: http://www.osronline.com/showlists.cfm?list=ntdev
>
> OSR is HIRING!! See http://www.osr.com/careers
>
> For our schedule of WDF, WDM, debugging and other seminars visit:
> http://www.osr.com/seminars
>
> To unsubscribe, visit the List Server section of OSR Online at
> http://www.osronline.com/page.cfm?name=ListServer
>

OSR_Community_User · December 6, 2013, 10:54pm

\documentclass{letter}
\signature{Oliver}
\begin{document}
\begin{letter}{NTDEV}

\begin{quote}
Do people in the 21st century really want to study and hand edit
incredibly complex project files that are miles long? It would be
going back to the days before WYSIWYG where you had to create
documents using a markup language.
\end{quote}

You mean like {\LaTeX} which separates (\emph{beautiful!}) layout from
content?

Yes, please!

I still use it regularly if I want letters, presentations etc to not
look cheap and mediocre.

\begin{quote}
The misguided bias towards a completely inferior product is shocking.
\end{quote}

Were you calling {\LaTeX} inferior?

\closing{Best regards,}
\ps{Sorry, couldn’t resist. \verb+;o)+}
\end{letter}
\end{document}

Calvin_Guan-3 · December 6, 2013, 11:03pm

I tried many equation editors, free or paid. None of them came even closer
to LaTex. you got my vote.

On Fri, Dec 6, 2013 at 7:53 PM, Oliver Schneider wrote:

> \documentclass{letter}
> \signature{Oliver}
> \begin{document}
> \begin{letter}{NTDEV}
>
> \begin{quote}
> Do people in the 21st century really want to study and hand edit
> incredibly complex project files that are miles long? It would be
> going back to the days before WYSIWYG where you had to create
> documents using a markup language.
> \end{quote}
>
> You mean like {\LaTeX} which separates (\emph{beautiful!}) layout from
> content?
>
> Yes, please!
>
> I still use it regularly if I want letters, presentations etc to not
> look cheap and mediocre.
>
> \begin{quote}
> The misguided bias towards a completely inferior product is shocking.
> \end{quote}
>
> Were you calling {\LaTeX} inferior?
>
> \closing{Best regards,}
> \ps{Sorry, couldn’t resist. \verb+;o)+}
> \end{letter}
> \end{document}
>
> —
> NTDEV is sponsored by OSR
>
> Visit the list at: http://www.osronline.com/showlists.cfm?list=ntdev
>
> OSR is HIRING!! See http://www.osr.com/careers
>
> For our schedule of WDF, WDM, debugging and other seminars visit:
> http://www.osr.com/seminars
>
> To unsubscribe, visit the List Server section of OSR Online at
> http://www.osronline.com/page.cfm?name=ListServer
>

Alex_Grig · December 6, 2013, 11:52pm

>I have had that problem with Visual Studio for a long time – I always
forget to pick “all configurations” before I start editing.

You haven’t been burned by a bug in one of previous VS versions, where you had to edit some items (defines, for example) one configuration at a time, or risk losing per-config settings.

I remember when I once complained you couldn’t do something as
simple as hover the mouse over a variable to see its value with windbg

It kinda works now. Most of the time, though.

OSR_Community_User · December 7, 2013, 2:14am

> (mouse hover in windbg) kinda works now. Most of the time, though.

Yes indeed. So it is possible in the kernel after all, it is a useful feature, and it was a botched job to this day not implemented nearly as well as the same functionality that has been in VS for eons. Windbg comparatively is a very crude, poorly thought out, and poorly implemented tool and what really gets me are the usability gaps a mile wide. I don’t like having windbg sit not responding for 2 minutes and not having any idea what it is doing or when it will be done or if it is dead. That’s just very poor workmanship and I would fire anyone who released a product that did that to the poor user base instead of doing their job right.

It’s interesting though to see some people find it awkward to pull down a configuration drop down menu and instead have an instinctive desire to drill into and hand edit a proprietary file. I didn’t find it a particularly difficult adjustment.

Pavel_A1 · December 7, 2013, 7:32am

On 07-Dec-2013 05:53, Oliver Schneider wrote:

You mean like {\LaTeX} which separates (\emph{beautiful!}) layout from
content?

Not quite, but how about Markdown? It become very hot recently.
Also, YAML vs. XML.
(On the other end… compilers don’t produces code any close to
hand-crafted assembly. So what?)

Pardon me for jumping in.
–pa