Articles Tagged “Legacy Asset Reuse”
32 articles tagged “Legacy Asset Reuse”, newest first.
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What Is an OLE Object? — How Embedding and Linking Work and the Pitfalls in Business Documents
An OLE object is what embeds an Excel table in Word. Learn embedding vs. linking, compound files, In-Place Activation, broken links, bloat, and security.
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How Windows App Compatibility Works — Keeping Old Apps Alive with Compatibility Mode, Shims, and Compatibility Administrator
Why Compatibility mode makes old apps run: how shims (API hooks) work, what key shims do, rollout via Compatibility Administrator and sdbinst, limits, and ex...
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Should That Batch File Move to PowerShell? — Auditing cmd/bat Assets and Making the Migration Call
A decision table for working out whether the batch files still running your business should move to PowerShell: how cmd and VBScript differ in status, bat's ...
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Calling COM and .NET from PowerShell — Widening What Your Scripts Can Reach
A practical guide to calling .NET classes from PowerShell, embedding C# and Win32 APIs with Add-Type, driving COM, cleaning up leftover Excel processes, why ...
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Parameter Design and Modularization for PowerShell Scripts — From a Script That Works to a Script You Can Hand Over
A step-by-step procedure for raising a PowerShell script to a quality you can hand to someone else. Covers the param block and [CmdletBinding()], input valid...
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The Differences Between Windows PowerShell 5.1 and PowerShell 7 — A Practical Guide to Migrating In-House Scripts
The relationship between Windows PowerShell 5.1 and PowerShell 7 (side-by-side coexistence and pwsh.exe), Microsoft's official position that 5.1 gets no new ...
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Automating Excel and CSV Work with PowerShell — Practical Recipes for Aggregation, Reconciliation, and Report Output
Practical recipes for automating CSV aggregation, reconciliation, and Excel report output with PowerShell. Covers the default encodings of Import-Csv/Export-...
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Migrating Excel VBA Macros to Power Automate — What to Replace with Office Scripts, and What to Leave as VBA
A guide to whether Excel VBA macros can migrate to Power Automate, covering what Office Scripts can replace, what only VBA can still do, connector limits, li...
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DLL and COM Interface Backward Compatibility — A Decision Table for Which Changes Break Callers
Which changes to a DLL or COM component actually break their callers? We lay out the three layers of compatibility — binary, source, and behavioral — a decis...
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Safely Modifying a Legacy Business App That Has No Tests — Characterization Testing and Refactoring in Practice
To safely modify a business application with no tests, this article explains, with C# examples, the procedure for a characterization test (the golden master ...
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When You Inherit a System With No Source Code and No Documentation — A Practical Playbook for Keeping It Running
A practical playbook for starting operations and maintenance on a business system that has no source code and no specifications. Covers preserving and backin...
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How Long Will VB6 Apps Keep Running? — Runtime Support Status and a Practical Path to .NET Migration
How long will VB6 applications keep running? This practical guide clarifies the asymmetry between the VB6 runtime support policy (still supported on Windows ...
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What Is MFC on Windows? Foundational Knowledge for Maintaining Existing Assets
An overview of the Microsoft Foundation Classes (MFC): its relationship to Win32, application structure, message maps, Document/View, DDX/DDV, and the things...
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What to Do Before Disposing of a Windows PC — A Practical Checklist for Data Erasure, Account Unlinking, and Backups
What to do before disposing of, transferring, selling, or returning a leased Windows PC — covering backups, data erasure, BitLocker, Microsoft accounts, OneD...
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What Is a PDB (Program Database)? — Understanding Debug Information, Symbols, and Source Link
What a PDB (Program Database) file is, what it does and does not contain, and how it relates to Debug / Release, Portable PDB, Source Link, symbol servers, a...
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What Is Roslyn? Reading, Fixing, and Generating C# Code from the Compiler's Point of View
An overview of Roslyn (the .NET Compiler Platform): Syntax Trees, SemanticModel, Workspaces, Analyzers, Source Generators, and where they fit (and where to b...
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Windows App Outsourcing and Custom Software Development: What to Sort Out Before You Ask
Before commissioning Windows app outsourcing or custom software development, here is how to sort out existing software modification, device integration, COM/...
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Using Algebraic Data Types in .NET Framework / .NET — Designing States and Results with Types
How to use algebraic data types — especially sum types and discriminated unions — in .NET Framework and .NET, and what you gain: F#, C# class hierarchies, re...
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Handling Windows Impersonation Tokens Correctly — Borrowing Privileges per Thread and Reverting Safely
A practical guide to Windows impersonation tokens — access tokens, primary tokens, thread tokens, impersonation levels, RevertToSelf, and .NET's WindowsIdent...
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The Misconception That TCP Lets You Receive in the Same Units You Send — Designing Reception Around a Byte Stream
Assuming TCP delivers data in the same units as Send or Write leads to fragmentation, coalescing, garbled text, and broken protocols. This article lays out h...
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Telling GC Lag from a Memory Leak in .NET — A Practical Procedure for Observing, Comparing, and Proving Memory Growth
A procedure for determining whether growing memory in a .NET application is simply waiting on garbage collection or a genuine memory leak, using dotnet-count...
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How to Run PowerShell from C# (CSharp) and Receive the Results as Objects
How to launch PowerShell from C# and receive results as PSObject rather than strings — a practical walkthrough of the PowerShell SDK, AddCommand, AddParamete...
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Testing PowerShell with Pester — A Practical Approach to Making Operations Scripts Harder to Break
A practical walkthrough of testing PowerShell scripts with Pester v5 — safely covering date handling, file operations, deletion logic, mocking, and CI execut...
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Practical PowerShell Command Recipes — Growing the Small Tools You Use Every Day
A practical roundup of PowerShell commands for everyday work, covering where to use Measure-Object, Group-Object, Select-String, Compare-Object, Tee-Object, ...
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Applied PowerShell Scripting — Safely Automating Log Investigation, Archiving, and Reporting
Practical steps for safely automating log investigation, CSV reporting, archiving old logs, keeping audit trails, and Task Scheduler execution with PowerShel...
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PowerShell Command Basics — The Operations to Learn First and How to Use Them Safely
A guide for PowerShell beginners who need to get real work done: how to find cmdlets, the pipeline, file operations, CSV processing, execution policy, and th...
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A Guide to Breaking Free from IE Mode Dependence
Practical steps for safely extending the life of internal web systems that depend on Microsoft Edge's IE mode while exiting that dependence. Covers centraliz...
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Why ActiveX Stops Working in Office 2024/Microsoft 365 and How to Diagnose It
When ActiveX stops working in Office 2024/Microsoft 365, work through the causes in order: default disablement, 32-bit/64-bit mismatch, COM registration, dep...
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Preparing for VBScript Deprecation: An Audit Guide for VBA and Internal Tools
Preparing for the phased deprecation of VBScript: inventorying VBA, Excel macros, and internal tools, static detection, execution logging, choosing replaceme...
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A Practical Procedure for Identifying the Scheme Behind a Hash String
When identifying the scheme behind a hash string left in logs or a DB, it helps to look at the prefix, separators, character set, and length, in that order. ...
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Why PPAP Is Bad for Email Security, and What to Do Instead
We examine why PPAP — emailing a password-protected ZIP and then sending the password in a separate email — is dangerous, and lay out the realistic alternati...
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Designing Bulk Email for Small Businesses Without Locking Into a Specific Service
We lay out how a small business can avoid Bcc blast sending and design announcement email at the scale of dozens to hundreds of recipients, covering per-reci...