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Inside the Windows 95 Registry by Ron Petrusha Recommended

ISBN: 1-56592-170-4       Publisher: O'Reilly       Pages: 575pp+disk       Price: £24-50

Categories:   internals and hardware     MS Windows

Reviewed by Aidan Cooper in C Vu 9-3 (Mar 1997)

As already stated, this book is really a programmer's guide and so by chapter 4 we're introduced to the APIs available in Win95. As well as the APIs the book tries to encourage proper use of the registry by explaining what should be stored in the registry. Provided on the accompanying disc is a set of spy utilities for watching what Win95 is doing to and with the registry, this along with discussion in the book helps the reader to understand the function of the registry (the disc also includes the source for all of the examples used in the book). Although mainly written for a C audience, a chapter is provided showing how to use Visual Basic with the registry.

The book also does a good job explaining how to utilise the registry if writing Win16 applications. This allows users who are still writing for Windows 3.1x to make their applications compatible with Win95. If you're a programmer who intends writing for Win95 then this book really is a must for your bookshelf, if however all you want is to understand the registry and use it there are other books available which cover this area better.