The 2021 Top 100

Let’s try something different. The statistics package that runs on the live web server tallies by the month. What it can say about unique visitors for a whole year is plainly unreliable. It also relegates a long tail to the summary description of Others but in a way that looks to me like it can leave some means of alternative access to more popular pages unaccounted. Still, there’s enough data for at least a rough review of the year’s viewing.

The total number of visits, at 253,045, plausibly would be reliable but is in this year a small undercount since it ignores access through plain old HTTP in January and February. My obscure and deeply technical website had at least a quarter of a million visits in a year, and I am in no way unhappy about this.

The list below is of the 100 document pages that had the most views through the whole of 2021. Faded titles are just index pages which I presume are viewed only or mainly on the way to others, especially while moving from one Table of Contents (TOC) to another. One of those index pages is just the skimpiest of placeholders, pending my writing an introduction, which I likely never will get round to. The TOCs are omitted entirely, as is the banner page, since none of these are meant to be seen independently of a document page.

I highlight some counts of visits just to draw attention to the corresponding pages as ones that I happen for reasons of personal satisfaction to be unusually glad to have written. Some are old, some new. Some are well polished, some still far from finished.

Rank Page Visits
1 Geoff Chappell, Software Analyst 51,372
2 AOL Exploits Bug in Own Software (AIM) 14,683
3 Kernel32 Functions 11,612
4 Kernel-Mode Windows 11,600
5 Strange Things LINK Knows About 80x86 Processors 8,675
6 Licensed Memory in 32-Bit Windows Vista 8,040
7 NTDLL Exports 7,672
8 Win32 Programming 6,523
9 PEB 6,333
10 The Windows Explorer Command Line 6,071
11 ZwQuerySystemInformation 5,427
12 The Kernel-Power Event Provider 5,058
13 SYSTEM_INFORMATION_CLASS 4,181
14 Back Doors for Cross-Signed Drivers 3,807
15 SYSTEM_PROCESS_INFORMATION 3,782
16 KUSER_SHARED_DATA 3,648
17 Shell 3,635
18 Native API Functions 3,612
19 NTDLL 3,518
20 EPROCESS 3,452
20 Notes 3,452
22 BCD Elements 3,304
23 Windows Kernel Exports 3,177
24 Microsoft Visual C++ 3,120
25 ADVAPI32 Functions 2,926
26 LDR_DATA_TABLE_ENTRY 2,876
27 TEB 2,852
28 Edit Boot Options in Windows Vista 2,831
29 Kernel Versions 2,827
30 SYSTEM_HANDLE_INFORMATION 2,703
31 Boot Configuration Data (BCD) 2,452
32 Netwtw06 Driver Spams System Event Log 2,401
33 About This Site 2,389
34 Boot Options: nx 2,347
35 What’s New? 2,199
36 Internet Explorer 2,129
37 SYSTEM_HANDLE_TABLE_ENTRY_INFO 2,083
38 SHELL32 Functions 2,062
39 The API Set Schema 1,994
40 PEB_LDR_DATA 1,902
41 THREADINFOCLASS 1,796
42 KERNELBASE Functions 1,762
43 BCD Objects 1,679
44 The AARD Code 1,647
45 HAL Versions 1,630
46 The Boot Status Data Log 1,618
47 Consultation 1,593
48 Licensed Driver Signing in Windows 10 1,578
49 KERNEL32 Versions 1,566
50 The First Run Page in Internet Explorer 1,521
51 Feedback 1,501
52 RtlInitUnicodeString 1,499
53 Boot Options: detecthal 1,498
54 The Service Control Manager Event Provider 1,493
55 KPCR 1,491
56 Advanced Boot Options Menu in Windows Vista 1,477
57 The x86 BIOS Emulator 1,440
58 SVCHOST 1,419
59 NTDLL Versions 1,402
60 Disable Global Hot Keys 1,319
61 Software Analysis by Reverse Engineering 1,306
62 The Microsoft Visual C++ Linker 1,303
63 NtTraceControl 1,283
64 KTHREAD 1,266
65 Event Tracing for Windows 1,253
66 Boot Options: numproc 1,244
67 RTL_PROCESS_MODULE_INFORMATION 1,230
68 THREADINFO 1,178
69 The CPUID Instruction 1,147
70 SYSTEM_THREAD_INFORMATION 1,146
71 KPROCESS 1,132
72 KPRCB (x64) 1,109
73 SYSENTER and SYSEXIT in Windows 1,100
74 Browsing Guide 1,092
75 Feature Control in Internet Explorer 1,074
76 Terms of Use 1,059
77 ADVAPI32 1,044
78 The Shell Core Provider 1,023
79 ETHREAD 1,006
80 ETW Security 990
80 WND 990
82 Shim Database (SDB) Files 985
83 RtlGetNtVersionNumbers 982
84 Windows API Sets 979
85 The CPL Icon Loading Vulnerability 970
86 Predefined C++ Types 955
87 API Sets Added for Windows 10 954
88 ZwSetSystemInformation 933
89 SYSTEM_BASIC_INFORMATION 930
90 SHDOCVW 919
91 SYSTEM_HANDLE_TABLE_ENTRY_INFO_EX 905
92 KPRCB 900
93 The Kernel Shim Engine 886
94 URLMON Functions 847
95 COMCTL32 Versions 837
96 RtlSetProcessIsCritical 831
97 Outlook Sends Email From Empty Outbox 824
98 ZwQuerySystemInformationEx 820
99 SVCHOST Process Initialisation 792
100 SYSTEM_CODEINTEGRITY_INFORMATION 781