Debugging issues which have to do with synchronization objects, such as deadlocks and other types of hangs, has traditionally been a very difficult task. Normally left to consultants, it was a great source of income too. How does Windows actually keep track of synchronization objects? What does Vista have to do with this (as the title of the post suggests)? If this floats your boat, read on. The Win32 synchronization objects, as well as their managed counterparts (such as the .NET...
A few years ago, I recall needing to know (programmatically) which user has accessed a particular file. As part of a legacy system, this couldn't make the code base any worse. The idea was that there's a configuration file sitting on a network share; access to it is granted to only a single user at any given time. However, other users requesting access want to know why access is being denied - i.e., which user is holding them from accessing the file. This information...