Raymond Chen, a senior Microsoft engineer, usually tells fascinating tales about Microsoft or Home windows. For instance, lately, he shared some extra particulars in regards to the Janet Jackson music that’s formally a cyberthreat for Home windows computer systems and the way some OS options just like the APO have been used to guard PCs.

Chen shares these tales in his The Previous New Factor column on Microsoft’s website and within the newest submit, he has described how the Home windows native clipboard is completely different from different clipboard managers however in a great way.

For many who is probably not acquainted, Home windows provides a default clipboard that may be enabled through the Settings app. There’s a easier means, too, by utilizing the Win + V shortcut after which deciding on the “Activate” possibility.

On this newest story, Chen solutions a query that a few of you could have observed and puzzled: “Why doesn’t Clipboard Historical past seize fast adjustments to clipboard contents?” Chen says that the asynchronous method is definitely what makes the Home windows one higher, at the very least by way of efficiency, because it doesn’t decelerate the system with fixed adjustments.

Home windows is ready to obtain this utilizing the AddClipboardFormatListener operate and the WM_CLIPBOARDUPDATE message identifier. The previous is a part of the Winuser header (.h file) whereby winuser.h file helps to deal with numerous user-side inputs like keyboard and mouse, amongst others. These Home windows API options have been launched with Home windows Vista.

Explaining how all this works, Chen writes:

The clipboard historical past service operates asynchronously. It registers for clipboard adjustments through AddClipboardFormatListener, and when it receives a change notification, it updates the clipboard historical past. The listener is notified asynchronous, nevertheless, so by the point the listener receives the WM_CLIPBOARDUPDATE message, the clipboard could have modified a second time.

That is completely different from clipboard viewers, that are notified synchronously when the clipboard adjustments. The draw back is that you simply would possibly miss out on clipboard adjustments. The a lot better upside is that you simply don’t decelerate or hold the clipboard.

Thus, it seems like Microsoft has taken an method such that even one thing just like the clipboard has been created in a means in order that it doesn’t have an effect on the efficiency of the OS. It’s good to see that the corporate takes care of those small but vital issues to be able to make Home windows nice.