Name: The old new thing
ISBN: 9780321440303

The old new thing

"Raymond Chen is the original raconteur of Windows." --Scott Hanselman, ComputerZen.com "Raymond has been at Microsoft for many years and has seen many nuances of Windows that others could only ever hope to get a glimpse of. With this book, Raymond shares his knowledge, experience, and anecdotal stories, allowing all of us to get a better understanding of the operating system that affects millions of people every day. This book has something for everyone, is a casual read, and I highly recommend it!" --Jeffrey Richter, Author/Consultant, Cofounder of Wintellect "Very interesting read. Raymond tells the inside story of why Windows is the way it is." --Eric Gunnerson, Program Manager, Microsoft Corporation "Absolutely essential reading for understanding the history of Windows, its intricacies and quirks, and why they came about." --Matt Pietrek, MSDN Magazine's Under the Hood Columnist "Raymond Chen has become something of a legend in the software industry, and in this book you'll discover why. From his high-level reminiscences on the design of the Windows Start button to his low-level discussions of GlobalAlloc that only your inner-geek could love, The Old New Thing is a captivating collection of anecdotes that will help you to truly appreciate the difficulty inherent in designing and writing quality software." --Stephen Toub, Technical Editor, MSDN Magazine Why does Windows work the way it does? Why is Shut Down on the Start menu?

What Hacker News says

fragmedeOct 2026

That's a really good question! The code to the old software, the first version of Adobe Photoshop, Microsoft Office, IdSoftware's Doom, are available on GitHub, and people have poured over them. Or more modernly, there's large open source projects out there currently. But most source isn't something anyone else would see outside of work because it's all proprietary software. Google's internal systems are a thing of beauty, but no one outside of Google can legally be shown them, so it goes unnoticed by the wider world. The closest thing we get to art appreciation thus is blogs like Raymond Chen's Old New Thing. He's a programmer with Microsoft that talks about what it was like to work on windows.

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OptionOfTApr 2026

I agree, and I think the metrification of UX hasn't helped here.

If you read the old Win32 interface design studies, and Raymond Chen's "Old New Thing, The: Practical Development Throughout the Evolution of Windows" you realize what people click isn't always what they want.

And old UX was ensuring that it was build in a way that what the user clicked was what they wanted.

Now? Since the MBAs came in the UX is another hostile piece of software, trying to trigger you into spending money.

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anonymarsMar 2026

Same here. With Windows 11 I feel like, "look how they massacred my boy"

There were so many things in previous versions of Windows that were done with thought and care. Probably the blogs helped make me appreciate it (especially Raymond Chen's The Old New Thing). Windows 11 feels like an insult created by people who hate Windows and never use it

I really wish we could keep the modern underpinnings with a prior shell

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jonstewartDec 2025

Not corporate, but two of the best individual developer blogs are Eli Bendersky's and Rachel by the Bay. They've both been blogging prolifically for a decade+, Eli with a focus on, broadly, compilers and Rachel on SRE/debugging.

Raymond Chen's The Old New Thing is also required reading for anyone that works with Windows.

https://eli.thegreenplace.net/

https://rachelbythebay.com/w/

https://devblogs.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/

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KurajDec 2025

It wasn't exactly disappointing. I loved to read The Old New Thing back in the day, Raymond's blog was full of stuff like this.

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vunderbaApr 2025

For finding blogs I either pick them up organically here or on lobste.rs.

The more niche your blog is, the more chances you'll have at sharing it on highly specialized subreddits - otherwise you can always drop links to your blog in HN conversation threads if it feels relevant. That's how I developed a bit of readership on mine.

And in the interest of sharing blogs, a classic is "Old New Thing" written by Raymond Chen. It's highly technical around Microsoft/Windows but I enjoy how incredibly thorough it is.

https://devblogs.microsoft.com/oldnewthing

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