A Microsoft Engineer's Encounter with Raymond Chen: Preprocessors and BitLocker Error Messages

In 2009, a young Microsoft BitLocker developer sought a way to reference C++ constant values within .mc files to improve BitLocker's error messages. He reached out to an internal mailing list and received a concise yet effective reply from Raymond Chen: use the preprocessor. However, fearing a disruption to the complex Windows build system, the developer ultimately abandoned the approach. Years later, he reflects on this experience, highlighting shortcomings in Microsoft's internal tooling and his own avoidance of complex build systems.