IIRC, it's a hack because neither x nor y is usually -32000, so those are flag values instead of fixed actual values. You have enough physical screens laid out in a line it's possible (16 1080p + a 1280 wide one), but still unlikely on one system given it would take multiple video cards to drive that many. The desktop as a decorated window hides the resize frame and title bar by positioning outside the effective area of a multiple screen layout and using a width and height that just encompasses the layout in Display Properties as the client area dimensions, with (0,0) of the viewports being one of the corners of the primary screen's client area. This forces at least one position coordinate to be negative by at least the width of the resize frame. I forget whether this is documented in the DDK or SDK,  sorry, and which edition.

------ Original message------
From: James Tabor
Date: Sat, Feb 13, 2016 12:03 AM
To: ReactOS Development List;
Cc:
Subject:[ros-dev] [ros-diffs] [hbelusca] 70713: [WIN32SS] - Fix orthograph - Mention in the code that some stuff are hacks & need to be fixed. - Add parentheses around bit checks.

Hello,
Why is this a hack?

Thanks,
James

Modified: trunk/reactos/win32ss/user/ntuser/winpos.c
URL: http://svn.reactos.org/svn/reactos/trunk/reactos/win32ss/user/ntuser/winpos.c?rev=70713&r1=70712&r2=70713&view=diff
==============================================================================
--- trunk/reactos/win32ss/user/ntuser/winpos.c	[iso-8859-1] (original)
+++ trunk/reactos/win32ss/user/ntuser/winpos.c	[iso-8859-1] Fri Feb 12 16:40:36 2016
@@ -724,8 +724,8 @@
    pwndParent = Window->spwndParent;
    if (pwndParent == UserGetDesktopWindow())
    {
-      ERR("Parent is Desktop, Min off screen!\n");
-      /* ReactOS doesn't support iconic minimize to desktop */
+      ERR("FIXME: Parent is Desktop, Min off screen!\n");
+      /* FIXME: ReactOS doesn't support iconic minimize to desktop */
       Pos->x = Pos->y = -32000;
       Window->InternalPos.flags |= WPF_MININIT;
       Window->InternalPos.IconPos.x = Pos->x;