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Cool writeup!

This is apparently because some versions of Windows don't understand shared locks

Which versions? It seems even the Windows 95 had FILE_SHARE_READ and FILE_SHARE_WRITE which are effectively shared locks (it just didn't have the FILE_SHARE_DELETE)

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The author is referring to the LockFile API call, which only supports exclusive byte-range locks, vs. the LockFileEx API call, which does support shared byte-range locks, but is only available on the Windows NT variants (NT 4 and above), not the Windows 9x variants (95, 98, and ME).

Ah, the cross-disciplinary have vs. understand.

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