W

waitable timer object

See timer object.

wait function

A function that blocks the execution of the calling thread until a specified set of conditions has been met.

waiting thread

A thread whose execution is blocked while waiting for a wait function to return. See also wait function.

WAVE file

A Microsoft standard file format for storing waveform audio data. WAVE files have a .WAV filename extension.

waveform audio

A technique of recreating an audio waveform from digital samples of the waveform.

wide character

A synonym for a Unicode™ character; Unicode characters are 2 bytes wide.

widened path

A modified path. See also path.

wildcard characters

Characters that represent one or more characters in a filename. The Windows wildcard characters are the question mark (?) and the asterisk (*). The question mark matches any single character; the asterisk matches any combination of characters. For example, if a directory contains files with the names BAT, B12, BOAT, and CAT, the pattern b\* matches the names BAT, B12, and BOAT. The pattern b?t matches only the name BAT.

Win32 service

A service that conforms to the interface rules of the Service Control Manger. This enables the Service Control Manager to start the service at system startup or on demand and enables communication between the service and service control programs. A Win32 service can execute in its own process, or it can share a process with other Win32 services.

window

A rectangle in page space that is used to specify a transformation between page and device space.

window extent

The width or height of the window.

window handle

A 32-bit value, assigned by Windows, that uniquely identifies a window.

window name

A text string that identifies a window for the user.

window origin

(1) The upper left corner of a window's client area.

(2) The corner of the window from which the extents are measured. (The window-origin coordinates are specified with respect to the page-space origin.)

window procedure

A function, called by the operating system, that controls the appearance and behavior of its associated windows. The procedure receives and processes all messages to these windows.

window style

A named constant that defines an aspect of the window's appearance and behavior not specified by the window's class.

window text

See window name.

Windows directory

The directory that contains Windows-based applications, initialization files, and Help files. See also directory.

Windows metafile

One of two metafile formats. This format, used for applications written to run with Windows version 3.x, consists of a header and an array of metafile records. See also metafile record.

Windows time

The number of milliseconds since Windows started running. This time is recorded as a 32-bit value, so it overflows to zero every 49.7 days.

world coordinate space

The coordinate space in which all graphics device interface (GDI) drawing operations begin if an application has set the world-space to page-space transformation.

world space

The coordinate space in which all graphics device interface (GDI) drawing operations begin if an application has set the world-space to page-space transformation. Applications use world space to rotate shear, or reflect graphics output. World space measures 2^(32) units high by 2^(32) units wide, and is one of four coordinate spaces used in the Win32 API. See also device coordinate space, page coordinate space, and physical device.