Call FormatMessage with a system error number to retrieve
    the descriptive error message.

def format_system_message(errno):
    """
    Call FormatMessage with a system error number to retrieve
    the descriptive error message.
    """
    # first some flags used by FormatMessageW
    ALLOCATE_BUFFER = 0x100
    ARGUMENT_ARRAY = 0x2000
    FROM_HMODULE = 0x800
    FROM_STRING = 0x400
    FROM_SYSTEM = 0x1000
    IGNORE_INSERTS = 0x200

    # Let FormatMessageW allocate the buffer (we'll free it below)
    # Also, let it know we want a system error message.
    flags = ALLOCATE_BUFFER | FROM_SYSTEM
    source = None
    message_id = errno
    language_id = 0
    result_buffer = ctypes.wintypes.LPWSTR()
    buffer_size = 0
    arguments = None
    format_bytes = ctypes.windll.kernel32.FormatMessageW(
        flags,
        source,
        message_id,
        language_id,
        ctypes.byref(result_buffer),
        buffer_size,
        arguments,
    )
    # note the following will cause an infinite loop if GetLastError
    #  repeatedly returns an error that cannot be formatted, although
    #  this should not happen.
    handle_nonzero_success(format_bytes)
    message = result_buffer.value
    ctypes.windll.kernel32.LocalFree(result_buffer)
    return message