Scrollbar insanity

Any best known methods for dealing with the contorted manner of
obtaining the true range from a scrollbar control?

>From the current MSDN docs, it seems that the maximum value that user
can set a scrollbar to be is the Maximum property: "The Minimum and
Maximum properties determine the range of values the user can select."

However, both in other Usenet postings as well as in practice, this
isn't the case: http://tinyurl.com/d64mb. The actual range is Minimum -
Maximum-LargeChange+1. (So, technically the MSDN docs are correct, the
range is _determined_ by Maximum, but non-obviously.)

Is there another way besides remapping the whole range? And if not,
what are some good ways to do it? Another words, if the scroll thumb is
in the middle of the control, what would the value actually be?

-rory