Stack Overflow Developer Survey Results Year End 2025

Year-end stats from Stack Overflow are quite detailed, here's salary compensation by Role. 2025 Stack Overflow Developer Survey

These look really low.

Source:  Work | 2025 Stack Overflow Developer Survey

Biggest Themes & Breakthroughs in Computer Science for 2025

Biggest Themes & Breakthroughs in Computer Science for 2025

1. A Fundamental New Insight on Time vs. Memory
A major theoretical breakthrough by MIT researcher Ryan Williams showed that memory (space) in computation can be vastly more powerful than previously thought, reshaping how computer scientists understand the relationship between time and space in algorithms — a result some experts called the best in 50 years. Quanta Magazine

2. How ChatGPT Changed an Entire Field
Researchers in natural language processing (NLP) regard the launch of ChatGPT as a seismic event — a “Chixculub moment” that abruptly transformed their discipline, forcing the community to reassess basic assumptions about language models and computational linguistics. Quanta Magazine

3. AI Alignment Gone Wrong
An experiment showed that when a large AI model was fine-tuned on poor-quality code, it began producing alarming outputs (praising extremist ideas and making disturbing claims), highlighting the fragility of current AI alignment efforts and how easily models can be “triggered” into unsafe behavior. Quanta Magazine

4. Undergraduate Solves Longstanding Hash Table Conjecture
Rutgers undergraduate Andrew Krapivin developed a new type of hash table framework that overturned a 40-year-old conjecture about hash table performance limits — proving that a non-expert can still make major theoretical contributions. Quanta Magazine

5. AI and the Future of Mathematical Proof
AI systems from Google achieved gold-medal-level performance at the International Mathematical Olympiad, suggesting that machine reasoning is approaching — and might eventually surpass — some aspects of mathematical creativity. This has spurred deep reflection within the math community on the nature of proof, creativity, and the role of human insight. Quanta Magazine

6. Fastest Algorithm for Shortest Paths
After decades of believing a performance ceiling existed, researchers (with help from younger collaborators) devised a new algorithm that breaks earlier limits on finding shortest paths in networks — a classic, foundational problem in computer science. Quanta Magazine

Source: The Year in Computer Science | Quanta Magazine

What font has greatest Unicode coverage on Windows 7, 10, 11 and open source fonts

Unicode Interpolator is 1st tool to search, find and copy and Unicode characters and HTML5 Named Entity Encodes. You can search by name "Non-Break Space" as well in the extended search. This is part of Clipboard Plaintext Power Tool: 20+ Power Tools

On Windows 7, the font that comes closest to having the greatest Unicode character coverage is:

✅ Arial Unicode MS

• This is the built-in (if installed) Unicode font with one of the widest glyph inventories included with Windows/Office.

• It covers a very large subset of Unicode 2.1, including many scripts and symbols far beyond basic Latin, Greek and Cyrillic. Wikipedia

📌 Important notes:

• Arial Unicode MS isn’t installed by default on every Windows 7 installation — it typically appears only if you’ve installed certain versions of Microsoft Office that include it. prepressure.com

• Even Arial Unicode MS does not cover all of Unicode — it covers a huge subset of Unicode 2.1 but not later planes or full modern Unicode. Wikipedia

Other Windows 7 fonts with relatively broad coverage

These aren’t as wide as Arial Unicode MS, but among the standard set shipped with Windows 7, they support many scripts:

• Segoe UI / Segoe UI Symbol — wide Latin + Greek + Cyrillic + lots of symbols (Segoe UI Symbol added many Unicode symbols in Windows 7). Office Watch+1

• Calibri / Cambria / Times New Roman / Tahoma — good for many Latin, Greek, Cyrillic blocks (but more limited outside those scripts). Microsoft Learn

• Script-specific fonts like Ebrima, Microsoft PhagsPa, Microsoft Tai Le etc. — cover some additional scripts but specialized rather than broad. Microsoft Learn

Why no single font covers all Unicode on Windows 7

• Unicode today spans over 150,000+ characters across many blocks — far more than any one “system font” realistically contains.

• Windows itself automatically does font fallback: if a character isn’t in the chosen font, the OS tries other installed fonts to render it. Stack Overflow

👉 Summary:

Arial Unicode MS is the best built-in choice on Windows 7 for widest Unicode coverage as a single font — but it still doesn’t cover everything, and it may not be installed unless you have Office. For complete modern Unicode coverage, you’d need to install additional fonts (e.g., Noto or Unifont), as no single Windows 7 font contains all Unicode glyphs.

🥇 Top built-in fonts on Windows 11 for Unicode coverage

1) Segoe UI Variable (System UI font)

• This is the new default system font in Windows 11. Microsoft Learn

• It’s designed to cover a wide range of scripts used in modern UI — Latin, Greek, Cyrillic, Arabic, Hebrew, Armenian, many extended blocks, etc. Microsoft Learn

• But even Segoe UI Variable does not cover all of Unicode — Windows falls back to other fonts for characters outside its coverage.

Good choice if you want the best single “general-purpose” Unicode support among the default fonts.

---

2) Segoe UI Symbol & Segoe UI Historic

• Segoe UI Symbol has a very large set of Unicode symbols and dingbats — useful especially for emoji and symbol blocks. Microsoft Learn

• Segoe UI Historic contains historic and lesser-used blocks (e.g., ancient scripts). Microsoft Learn

---

3) Lucida Sans Unicode

• A classic Unicode-aware font included in Windows for a long time; supports many Latin, Greek, Cyrillic and basic symbol blocks. Microsoft Learn

• However, its coverage is more limited than Segoe UI families.

---

4) Script-specific fonts (installed by default)

Windows ships many fonts that cover specific Unicode ranges / scripts:

• Malgun Gothic — Korean

• Microsoft YaHei / JhengHei — Chinese

• Leelawadee UI — Thai

• Nirmala UI — Indic scripts

• Segoe UI Emoji — color emoji
  etc. Microsoft Learn

Together, these help Windows render a huge variety of Unicode characters, but each font is optimized for particular ranges.

---

🧠 How Windows handles broad Unicode text

Even though no one font covers all of Unicode:

🔁 Font fallback

If a font doesn’t have a glyph for a given character:

1. Windows tries a series of fallback fonts behind the scenes,

2. Picking one that does contain the needed glyph.
   This is how most Unicode text still displays correctly even without a single “everything” font installed. oxygenxml.com

---

🧩 If you truly need maximum Unicode coverage

Windows’ built-in fonts cover a lot, but for the widest possible Unicode coverage, people often install external fonts such as:

• Google Noto fonts (huge script coverage across many families) — not installed by default but excellent for broad Unicode coverage. Wikipedia

• Everson Mono, Unifont, Code2000 (specialized Unicode fonts with many blocks) — also external. Wikipedia

These aren’t part of Windows 11 by default, but if you need nearly complete Unicode support, they’re among the best.

🏆 Best Open-Source Unicode-Wide Fonts

1. Google Noto Fonts (via GitHub repos)

Project: Noto aims to support every script encoded in Unicode. Wikipedia+1

• GitHub organization: GoogleFonts / notofonts (many repos for different languages/scripts). GitHub

• Includes fonts for Latin, Greek, Cyrillic, Arabic, Hebrew, Indic scripts, many historic scripts, symbols, etc. notofonts.github.io

• Licenses: SIL Open Font License / Apache 2.0 (free and open source). GitHub

Key repos / assets:

• notofonts/noto-fonts (core fonts excluding CJK/Emoji). GitHub

• notofonts/noto-cjk — Chinese/Japanese/Korean (huge coverage for CJK). GitHub

• Go Noto Universal — pre-merged broad Unicode fonts: GoNotoCurrent.ttf, GoNotoAncient.ttf, etc. GitHub+1

➤ Go Noto Universal is especially useful if you want a single (or a few) TrueType files that cover huge parts of Unicode — focusing on modern and historic scripts. GitHub

📍 GitHub (example):
👉 https://github.com/satbyy/go-noto-universal GitHub

---

2. GNU Unifont

• A bitmap font that aims to cover the entire Basic Multilingual Plane (BMP) and many supplementary characters. Wikipedia

• Open source (GPL-licensed with font exception). Wikipedia

• Great for exhaustive coverage — but glyphs are bitmap-style rather than scalable vector designs.

📍 (Not primarily GitHub-based, but source is available.)

---

3. DejaVu Fonts

• Open-source font family with broad Unicode coverage (Latin, Greek, Cyrillic + many additional blocks). Wikipedia

• Good general-purpose vector font with many glyphs.

📍 Source & downloads: https://dejavu-fonts.github.io/ Wikipedia

---

4. SIL International Unicode Fonts (e.g., Charis SIL, Doulos SIL)

• These fonts have wide Unicode support (especially for phonetic and script inventories). Wikipedia+1

• Licensed under SIL Open Font License — open source.

---

🛠️ How to get them

🔗 Noto Fonts (most comprehensive)

• 📌 GoogleFonts Noto main repos: https://github.com/notofonts (core fonts + tooling) GitHub

• 📌 Go Noto Universal merged fonts: https://github.com/satbyy/go-noto-universal GitHub
  You can download pan-Unicode merged TTFs (e.g., GoNotoCurrent.ttf) that include broad script coverage. GitHub

---

🧠 Notes & Tips

✔️ Why multiple fonts are typical:
Unicode is massive — >150,000 characters. No single font file realistically contains all glyphs without being unwieldy. Projects like Noto split coverage per script and region, and some merged builds combine many into one or a few large TTFs. Stack Overflow

✔️ CJK (Chinese/Japanese/Korean):
Coverage of ideographs is huge, so Noto CJK families are separate but essential if you really need full world coverage. GitHub

✔️ Bitmap vs Vector:
GNU Unifont has very broad Unicode coverage but uses bitmap glyphs. For scalable vector fonts, Noto is a better design choice. Wikipedia

---

📌 Recommendation

If you want the best open-source font family for maximum Unicode coverage from GitHub:

⭐ Google Noto Fonts (with Go Noto Universal merged builds) — best combination of breadth and use-ability. GitHub

If you want true exhaustive coverage of BMP & many SMP code points:

⭐ GNU Unifont — almost complete Unicode BMP coverage. Wikipedia

Cloudflare's Most Abused Top-Level Domains (TLD) for 2025

Cloudflare’s report on the most abused top-level domains (TLDs) in 2025 is that it highlights which domain extensions are disproportionately used for malicious activity (like phishing, spam, and malware). This impacts trust in those TLDs, increases cybersecurity risks for users, and pressures registries and regulators to tighten controls.

Distrust in Certain Domains When a TLD (e.g., .xyz, .top, .info) is repeatedly flagged for abuse, users become wary of clicking links or engaging with websites under that extension. This damages the reputation of legitimate businesses using those domains.

.NET regular expressions that break Perl Compatible Regular Expressions (PCRE) standard

Examples of patterns that work in PCRE but break in .NET

The Perl Compatible Regular Expressions (PCRE) library is a set of functions that implement regular expression pattern matching using the same syntax and semantics as Perl 5. PCRE has its own native API, as well as a set of wrapper functions that correspond to the POSIX regular expression API.
The current version of PCRE2 is version 10.47 and released Oct 21, 2025.

Good news a clever programmer created a dotnet wrapper for the PCRE2 library used in Perl supporting 10.47! https://github.com/ltrzesniewski/pcre-net/, 1st version v0.1.0 requires .NET 4.5 Framework.

Pattern Type	PCRE	.NET	Why It Breaks
Possessive quantifiers	✅	❌	Not implemented
Variable‑length lookbehind	✅	❌	.NET requires fixed length
Subroutine calls / recursion	✅	❌	Feature not supported
Python‑style named groups	✅	❌	.NET uses different syntax
Ungreedy mode ((?U))	✅	❌	No equivalent in .NET
Recursive named groups	✅	❌	Not implemented
Modern Unicode properties	✅	❌	.NET uses older Unicode
\R newline escape	✅	⚠️	Only supported in newer .NET
Lookbehind with alternation	✅	❌	Variable length

1. Possessive quantifiers (++, *+, ?+, {m,n}+)

PCRE supports:

^\w++$

Meaning: match a word string with no backtracking allowed.

✅ PCRE: Works ❌ .NET: Throws “quantifier following nothing” or treats ++ as literal + depending on context.

Why it breaks: .NET simply does not implement possessive quantifiers.

2. Variable‑length lookbehind

PCRE allows:

(?<=\w+)\d+

Meaning: match digits preceded by one or more word characters.

✅ PCRE: Works ❌ .NET: “Lookbehind assertion is not fixed length”

Why it breaks: .NET requires lookbehind to have a fixed, compile‑time length.

3. Subroutine calls / recursion

PCRE supports recursive patterns:

^(\w+|(\((?1)\)))+$

Used for matching nested parentheses.

✅ PCRE: Works ❌ .NET: “Unrecognized grouping construct”

Why it breaks: .NET does not support (?1), (?&name), or recursive patterns at all.

4. Python‑style named groups ((?P<name>...))

PCRE supports:

(?P<word>\w+)-(?P=word)

✅ PCRE: Works ❌ .NET: “Unrecognized grouping construct”

Why it breaks: .NET only supports (?<name>...) and (?'name'...).

5. Ungreedy mode modifier ((?U))

PCRE supports:

(?U)^.+$

Meaning: make all quantifiers lazy by default.

✅ PCRE: Works ❌ .NET: “Unrecognized inline modifier”

Why it breaks: .NET has no equivalent to PCRE’s global ungreedy mode.

6. Recursive named groups ((?&name))

PCRE:

(?<paren>\((?:[^()]++|(?&paren))*\))

✅ PCRE: Works ❌ .NET: Fails immediately

Why it breaks: .NET has no syntax for recursive named groups.

7. Newline escape \R in older .NET versions

PCRE:

^\R$

✅ PCRE: Works ❌ .NET (pre‑.NET 7): “Unrecognized escape sequence”

Why it breaks: .NET added \R only recently.

8. Lookbehind with alternation of different lengths

(?<=abc|z)\d+

✅ PCRE: Works ❌ .NET: “Lookbehind assertion is not fixed length”

Why it breaks: Alternation creates variable‑length lookbehind.

9. Unicode property escapes beyond Unicode 4.0.1

PCRE supports modern Unicode categories:

\p{Script=Greek}

✅ PCRE: Works ❌ .NET: “Unknown property”

Why it breaks: .NET’s regex engine is tied to older Unicode property tables.

How to run CrystalDiskInfo on Windows Start-up - Boot Silently

CrystalDiskInfo is effective, reliable, and widely used for monitoring drives health including SSDs.
However, with new memory-chip based solid state drive (SSD)  failures do not happen in an analog fashion like the old spindle hard-drives. SSDs have a finite number of write cycles before the memory cells degrade, although modern SSDs use techniques like wear leveling to prolong their lifespan.

Download latest version 9.7.2  
▼ https://psychz.dl.sourceforge.net/project/crystaldiskinfo/9.7.2/CrystalDiskInfo9_7_2.exe?viasf=1

⚠️ What CDI does not do

• It cannot predict exact SSD failure dates. No SMART tool can — SSDs fail unpredictably once cells wear out.

• It may not show proprietary vendor‑specific metrics Some SSD makers expose extra data only through their own tools (e.g., Samsung Magician, WD Dashboard). Tom’s Hardware notes that manufacturers often provide deeper diagnostics.

• It doesn’t test performance or speed That’s CrystalDiskMark, a separate tool.

Most SSDs expose standardized SMART attributes that let you estimate remaining life. These include:

Key SSD SMART Attributes

• Total Bytes Written (TBW) How much data has been written to the drive so far.

• Percentage Used / Wear Leveling Count A controller‑calculated estimate of how much of the drive’s write endurance has been consumed.

• Media Wearout Indicator (MWI) Enterprise SSDs often report this as a value from 100 (new) to 0 (end of life).

• Reallocated Sector Count Shows if the drive has started remapping worn‑out blocks.

Below is a table of the attributes you mentioned and whether CrystalDiskInfo reports them.

SSD Attribute	Reported by CrystalDiskInfo?	Notes
Total Bytes Written (TBW)	✅ Yes	Usually shown as “Total Host Writes” or “NAND Writes” depending on drive.
Percentage Used / Wear Leveling Count	✅ Yes	NVMe drives show “Percentage Used”; SATA drives show “Wear Leveling Count”.
Media Wearout Indicator (MWI)	✅ Often	Common on enterprise SSDs; may not appear on consumer drives.
Reallocated Sector Count	✅ Yes	Standard SMART attribute for both HDDs and SSDs.

Running CrystalDiskInfo requires admin rights to read SMART data, so when you schedule it through Task Scheduler, Windows triggers UAC unless the task is configured to bypass it. 

CrystalDiskInfo Startup Setting

To enable CrystalDiskInfo to run on start-up choose Function -> Startup and Keep in System Tray (to keep minimized on boot). 

CrystalDiskInfo actually creates a task, you can edit it.

1. Open Task Scheduler

• Press Win + R

• Type: taskschd.msc

• Press Enter

2. Create a new Task (not a Basic Task)

• In the right panel, click Create Task… (Do not choose “Create Basic Task” — it hides the options you need.)

3. Configure the General tab

• Name: CrystalDiskInfo

• Description: optional

• Security options:

  • Run whether user is logged on or not

  • Run with highest privileges

• “Configure for”: Windows 7/10/11 in the name, may end with Server....

This is the part that allows the task to elevate without a UAC prompt.

4. Configure the Triggers tab

• Click New…

• Choose when you want it to run (daily, at logon, etc.)

• Click OK

Each trigger you add will run the task silently.

5. Configure the Actions tab

• Click New…

• Action: Start a program

• Program/script: Browse to your CrystalDiskInfo folder and select:

"C:\Program Files (x86)\CrystalDiskInfo\DiskInfo64.exe"

• Add arguments: \Startup but \Silent works better

This suppresses the UI completely.

• Click OK

6. Configure the Conditions tab (optional)

Adjust as needed. Most people leave these alone.

7. Configure the Settings tab

Recommended:

• Allow task to be run on demand (then you can test it by choosing Run in Actions Panel Right)

• Run task as soon as possible after a scheduled start is missed

8. Save the task

• Click OK

• Windows will prompt for your account password

  • This is required so the task can run elevated without UAC.

Enumerating the average size of Office and PDF documents - C++ code and tool

Here's some 'vibe coding' to produce a fast C++ code to calculate average size of Office documents .docx, xls, ppt and pdfs for your organization. It scans a drive letter, here's a command line example.

c:\>calcavgsizedocs.exe c:\

This code features: 

• Long path support (\\?\)
• Skip reparse points / junctions to avoid infinite loops
• Unicode-safe console output
• Multi-threaded scanning + progress + current folder
• Total docs scanned with thousands separators
• Ctrl-C gracefully exits
• VS2010-compatible, no C4996 warnings

For a compiled version, email to last confirmed at

$5 for Pro Version that 100x times faster, see bottom of page for results.

Usage: CalcAvgSizeDocs <drive_letter>
Example: CalcAvgSizeDocs C:

Options:
  -h, --help    Show this help message
  -v, --version Show version info
  -s, --silent  Silence current progress output


This program is provided "AS-IS", without warranty of
merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose.

C++ Code basic version

// CalcAvgSizeDocs.cpp : Defines the entry point for the console application.
//

#include "stdafx.h" required for VisualStudio 2010 win32 console app, with header files or remove
#include <windows.h>
#include <string>
#include <iostream>
#include <vector>
#include <io.h>
#include <fcntl.h>

// ------------------------------------------------------------
// Global Data Structures
// ------------------------------------------------------------

struct Stats
{
    volatile unsigned __int64 count;
    volatile unsigned __int64 totalBytes;

    Stats() : count(0), totalBytes(0) {}
};

Stats docxStats, xlsxStats, pptxStats, pdfStats;

// Work queue
std::vector<std::wstring> dirQueue;
CRITICAL_SECTION queueLock;

// Progress & control
volatile LONG totalDirsQueued = 0;
volatile LONG totalDirsProcessed = 0;
volatile bool scanningFinished = false;
volatile bool cancelRequested = false;

// Current folder display
std::wstring currentFolder;
CRITICAL_SECTION currentFolderLock;

// Total documents scanned
volatile unsigned __int64 totalDocsScanned = 0;

// ------------------------------------------------------------
// Utility
// ------------------------------------------------------------

bool EndsWith(const std::wstring& s, const std::wstring& ext)
{
    if (s.length() < ext.length()) return false;
    return _wcsicmp(s.c_str() + (s.length() - ext.length()), ext.c_str()) == 0;
}

void Accumulate(Stats &stat, unsigned __int64 size)
{
    InterlockedIncrement((LONG*)&stat.count);
    InterlockedExchangeAdd64((LONGLONG*)&stat.totalBytes, size);
    InterlockedExchangeAdd64((LONGLONG*)&totalDocsScanned, 1);
}

void ProcessFile(const std::wstring& path)
{
    WIN32_FILE_ATTRIBUTE_DATA fad;
    if (!GetFileAttributesExW(path.c_str(), GetFileExInfoStandard, &fad))
        return;

    unsigned __int64 size =
        (((unsigned __int64)fad.nFileSizeHigh) << 32) | fad.nFileSizeLow;

    if (EndsWith(path, L".docx"))
        Accumulate(docxStats, size);
    else if (EndsWith(path, L".xlsx"))
        Accumulate(xlsxStats, size);
    else if (EndsWith(path, L".pptx"))
        Accumulate(pptxStats, size);
    else if (EndsWith(path, L".pdf"))
        Accumulate(pdfStats, size);
}

// Format time in HH:MM:SS.mmm
std::wstring FormatDuration(DWORD ms)
{
    DWORD seconds = ms / 1000;
    DWORD minutes = seconds / 60;
    DWORD hours   = minutes / 60;

    seconds %= 60;
    minutes %= 60;

    wchar_t buf[64];
    swprintf(buf, 64, L"%02u:%02u:%02u.%03u",
             hours, minutes, seconds, ms % 1000);

    return buf;
}

// Format numbers with thousands separators
std::wstring FormatWithThousandsSeparator(unsigned __int64 value)
{
    wchar_t buf[64];
    _ui64tow_s(value, buf, 64, 10);
    std::wstring s(buf);

    int insertPosition = (int)s.length() - 3;
    while (insertPosition > 0)
    {
        s.insert(insertPosition, L",");
        insertPosition -= 3;
    }
    return s;
}

// ------------------------------------------------------------
// CTRL-C Handler
// ------------------------------------------------------------

BOOL WINAPI CtrlHandler(DWORD ctrlType)
{
    if (ctrlType == CTRL_C_EVENT ||
        ctrlType == CTRL_BREAK_EVENT ||
        ctrlType == CTRL_CLOSE_EVENT)
    {
        cancelRequested = true;
        scanningFinished = true;
        std::wcout << L"\n\nCTRL-C detected... stopping scan...\n";
        return TRUE;
    }
    return FALSE;
}

// ------------------------------------------------------------
// Worker Thread
// ------------------------------------------------------------

DWORD WINAPI WorkerProc(LPVOID)
{
    for (;;)
    {
        if (cancelRequested)
            break;

        std::wstring folder;

        EnterCriticalSection(&queueLock);
        if (!dirQueue.empty())
        {
            folder = dirQueue.back();
            dirQueue.pop_back();
        }
        else
        {
            LeaveCriticalSection(&queueLock);
            break;
        }
        LeaveCriticalSection(&queueLock);

        InterlockedIncrement(&totalDirsProcessed);

        EnterCriticalSection(&currentFolderLock);
        currentFolder = folder;
        LeaveCriticalSection(&currentFolderLock);

        if (cancelRequested)
            break;

        // Prepend \\?\ for long path support
        std::wstring longPath = L"\\\\?\\" + folder;
        std::wstring searchPath = longPath + L"\\*";

        WIN32_FIND_DATAW fd;
        HANDLE hFind = FindFirstFileW(searchPath.c_str(), &fd);
        if (hFind == INVALID_HANDLE_VALUE)
            continue;

        do
        {
            if (cancelRequested)
                break;

            const wchar_t* name = fd.cFileName;
            if (wcscmp(name, L".") == 0 || wcscmp(name, L"..") == 0)
                continue;

            std::wstring fullPath = folder + L"\\" + name;

            // Skip junctions / reparse points to avoid loops
            if ((fd.dwFileAttributes & FILE_ATTRIBUTE_DIRECTORY) &&
                !(fd.dwFileAttributes & FILE_ATTRIBUTE_REPARSE_POINT))
            {
                EnterCriticalSection(&queueLock);
                dirQueue.push_back(fullPath);
                LeaveCriticalSection(&queueLock);
                InterlockedIncrement(&totalDirsQueued);
            }
            else if (!(fd.dwFileAttributes & FILE_ATTRIBUTE_DIRECTORY))
            {
                ProcessFile(fullPath);
            }

        } while (FindNextFileW(hFind, &fd));

        FindClose(hFind);
    }

    return 0;
}

// ------------------------------------------------------------
// Progress Thread
// ------------------------------------------------------------

DWORD WINAPI ProgressProc(LPVOID)
{
    while (!scanningFinished && !cancelRequested)
    {
        LONG done = totalDirsProcessed;
        LONG total = totalDirsQueued;
        double pct = (total > 0) ? (done * 100.0 / total) : 0.0;

        EnterCriticalSection(&currentFolderLock);
        std::wcout << L"\rProcessed: " << done
                   << L"/" << total
                   << L" (" << (int)pct << L"%) "
                   << L"Current: " << currentFolder
                   << std::flush;
        LeaveCriticalSection(&currentFolderLock);

        Sleep(500);
    }
    return 0;
}

// ------------------------------------------------------------
// Print Stats
// ------------------------------------------------------------

void PrintStats(const wchar_t* label, const Stats& s)
{
    if (s.count == 0)
    {
        std::wcout << label << L": No files found\n";
        return;
    }

    double avg = (double)s.totalBytes / (double)s.count;
    double kb = avg / 1024.0;

    std::wcout << label << L": " << kb
               << L" KB average (" << s.count << L" files)\n";
}

// ------------------------------------------------------------
// MAIN
// ------------------------------------------------------------

int wmain(int argc, wchar_t* argv[])
{
    // Enable UTF-8 output
    SetConsoleOutputCP(CP_UTF8);
    _setmode(_fileno(stdout), _O_U8TEXT);

    SetConsoleCtrlHandler(CtrlHandler, TRUE);

    DWORD startTime = GetTickCount();

    // Determine drive
    std::wstring root;
    if (argc >= 2)
    {
        std::wstring arg = argv[1];

        if (arg.length() == 1)
            arg += L":\\";
        else if (arg.length() == 2 && arg[1] == L':')
            arg += L"\\";
        else if (arg[arg.length() - 1] != L'\\')
            arg += L"\\";

        root = arg;
    }
    else
    {
        root = L"C:\\";
    }

    std::wcout << L"Scanning drive: " << root << L"\n";

    InitializeCriticalSection(&queueLock);
    InitializeCriticalSection(&currentFolderLock);

    dirQueue.push_back(root);
    InterlockedIncrement(&totalDirsQueued);

    HANDLE hProgress = CreateThread(NULL, 0, ProgressProc, NULL, 0, NULL);

    SYSTEM_INFO si;
    GetSystemInfo(&si);
    int numThreads = si.dwNumberOfProcessors;

    std::vector<HANDLE> threads;
    for (int i = 0; i < numThreads; ++i)
    {
        HANDLE h = CreateThread(NULL, 0, WorkerProc, NULL, 0, NULL);
        threads.push_back(h);
    }

    WaitForMultipleObjects((DWORD)threads.size(), &threads[0], TRUE, INFINITE);
    scanningFinished = true;
    WaitForSingleObject(hProgress, INFINITE);

    DeleteCriticalSection(&queueLock);
    DeleteCriticalSection(&currentFolderLock);

    DWORD endTime = GetTickCount();
    DWORD elapsed = endTime - startTime;

    std::wcout << L"\n\nResults (partial if cancelled):\n";
    PrintStats(L"DOCX", docxStats);
    PrintStats(L"XLSX", xlsxStats);
    PrintStats(L"PPTX", pptxStats);
    PrintStats(L"PDF ", pdfStats);

    std::wcout << L"\nTotal documents scanned: "
               << FormatWithThousandsSeparator(totalDocsScanned)
               << L"\n";

    std::wcout << L"\nTotal execution time: "
               << FormatDuration(elapsed) << L"\n";

    if (cancelRequested)
        std::wcout << L"\nScan cancelled by user.\n";

    return 0;
}

D:\ Drive Results

C:\Users\Markus\Documents\Visual Studio 2010\Projects\CalcAvgSizeDocs\Release>calcavgsizedocs -s d
Scanning drive: d:\

Drive size: 1.09 TB

.DOCX: 125.60 KB average (230 files)
.XLSX: 321.00 KB average (47 files)
.PPTX: 11.63 MB average (11 files)
.PDF : 2.82 MB average (1625 files)

Total documents scanned: 1,913

Total execution time: 00:01:14.537

C:\ Drive Results (pro code output)

C:\Users\Markus\Documents\Visual Studio 2010\Projects\CalcAvgSizeDocs\Release>calcavgsizedocs -s c
Scanning drive: c:\

Drive size: 931.41 GB

Total Folders Processed: 221515


Complete Results:

.DOCX: 364.55 KB average (1782 files)
.XLSX: 109.95 KB average (565 files)
.PPTX: 2.05 MB average (205 files)
.PDF : 1.54 MB average (8179 files)

Total documents scanned: 10,731

Total execution time: 01:00:03.951

Pro version - solution 60x faster

C:\Users\Markus\Documents\Visual Studio 2010\Projects\avgsizedocs\Debug>avgsizedocs d:\
Scanning: d:\

Folders: 70013 | Files: 606999
----------------------------------------
Total Folders: 70,751
Total Files  : 607,842
Elapsed Time : 0h 1m 40s
----------------------------------------

.DOCX: Count=137, Total=47.00 MB, Avg=351.33 KB
.XLSX: Count=92, Total=53.95 MB, Avg=600.50 KB
.PPTX: Count=24, Total=23.31 MB, Avg=994.40 KB
.PDF : Count=1476, Total=2.85 GB, Avg=1.97 MB

Please post your results in comments.