How to read the sectors of physical drive under win32? The API ReadFile is most useful function, and with it, you can read the physical sectors directly. Here is a sample function, BOOL ReadSectors(…) BOOL ReadSectors( BYTE bDrive, //drive index DWORD dwStartSector, //start sector WORD wSectors, //sectors number LPBYTE lpSectBuff) { 　if (bDrive == 0) [...]

I have post an article about “How to get a fixed code for serial number” at http://www.ucosoft.com/archives/51.html. In that article, I suggest you try WMI class to retrieve  some hardware ID. But there is some limitation of this method. The WMI redist package is not always available on user’s system, for example, Windows NT4 and Windows [...]

How to load a bitmap from bmp file and draw it in DC? There are two main steps: Load the bitmap from the file to a memory DC. Paint the content of the memory DC to the one which display the bitmap. In MFC, there is no API to load a bitmap directly from a [...]

In gina, the system will list the domain name of the current system. How to get the primary domain name in your program? From the released the Windows2000 and NT source code, you can get the code of gina. It locate on \win2k\private\windows\gina\winlogon\usrpro.c. Here is the code:

Chinese version author: peach@newsmth.net Userally, when you install a global hook, you need a dll. But now, you can install WH_KEYBOARD_LL or WH_MOUSE_LL global hook without dll’s help. The following code was tested under win2k3. And I it will also run on 2k/xp.

If you don’t have Iphlpapi.lib installed, you can retrieve the local DNS server in the following way. The main step is load “Iphlpapi.dll” with ::LoadLibary method and call ::GetProcAddress to get the “GetNetworkParams”. Here is the full source:

It’s a good trick. From windows 2000, when a MessageBox popped out, you can use Ctrl+C to copy the content of the MessageBox window to the clipboard. It is a very interesting trick, and it is very usrful to share the information easily. The condition is only that the MessageBox window was created by MessageBoxA/MessageBoxW [...]

Chinese verion author: Quaful@newsmth.net. When an ActiveX will be installed in IE, the authenticode information will be showed out. And how to get the information by programming? In microsoft KB323809: HOWTO: Get Information from Authenticode Signed Executables, there is a full example code. But it’s not very easy to use in your program directly. So [...]

From MSDN: The profiler is an analysis tool that you can use to examine the run-time behavior of your programs. By using profiler information, you can determine which sections of your code are working efficiently. The profiler can produce information showing areas of code that are not being executed or that are taking a long [...]

When you want to get the RAM capacity of the graphics card installed on the computer, It’s more simple to use WMI class. You can give a look at the AdapterRAM attribute of Win32_VideoController. The Win32_VideoController WMI class represents the capabilities and management capacity of the video controller. AdapterRAM is one of its attibute: AdapterRAM [...]