I never knew how fu*ked up the Microsoft Windows OS really was until I started
programming for it. (The frequent hangs and required reboots did give me a
hint of course.) I was amazed to find that it supports hidden
windows. I had to use one myself to be able to trap the Windows
Shutdown event. (Only Windows are notified that the user wants to
shutdown.)
As a little My First Windows App I wrote
Showwin, a simple tool to show all windows
on a desktop, and the ability to unhide the ones you can not normally see.
This gives some interesting results as it seems some developers keep
debugging windows laying around. They figure hiding them was good enough
for the released version of their application. :-)
Also good fun is to hide the Program Manager (all icons on the
desktop) as well as the Taskbar. The result is just your background
on the screen.
This program should run on all Windows versions released after 1995. It was
tested on WinMe and XP Pro.
-
WARNING:
- It is very easy to screw up your desktop using Showwin. One
example is hiding the Taskbar and then minimizing Showwin.
I cannot take any responsiblity for such actions.
When in doubt, hit CTRL+ALT+DELETE and reboot your system.
You can download Showwin version 1.0 here.