Disappearing folder – bug in Windows 7

In process of testing one of our automation software I hit interesting Windows 7 bug. First I found it in our software, and right away tested this scenario on Windows 7, and bug was there. The bug. Create folder on the Desktop. New folder appears and cursor blinks allowing to change the name for the …

When Windows automatic update suddenly stops updating Windows automatically

Recently we noticed that some of our test and dev servers were not updating automatically through Windows or Microsoft update. It was real pain to find why this happened. There are numerous threads in the Internet about failed Windows update, and it is very hard to find the right answer. Luckily, I found a post …

Microsoft’s PowerShell hangs when output is captured using Windows API

I was debugging a program that uses Windows API (Creating a Child Process with Redirected Input and Output) to capture stdout of Microsoft’s Windows PowerShell. Script passed to PowerShell (-File switch) didn’t execute and PowerShell just hanged until killed by Task Manager. It turns out that you need to use undocumented parameter “-InputFormat none”: C:\Windows\System32\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0\powershell.exe …