Need Answer

[Adam Cruge1]

1.Recently I searched Yahoo and found some text on Computer. But some portion of it was beyond my
knowledge. I cannot understand the following ...Please tell me what does the following mean in a
layman language........

"An indirect but important benefit of the registry to IT professionals is application compatibility.
Microsoft defines standards for where different types of settings belong in the registry. The company
has standards for file associations, Plug and Play configuration data, printer settings, application
settings, and much more. Applications that follow these standards are more likely to work well with
the operating system, not to mention other applications, because they're all looking for the same
settings in the same places. For that matter, most applications that work well in Microsoft Windows
2000 will work just fine in Windows XP, given that the overall structure of the registry doesn't
change much between the operating systems."

[ashu888ashu888]

Well, it is preety much self explainatory..

Btw, if u need meaning of terms then here it goes (in simple lang.)

1.) Application Compatibility: Ability of an application to be able to work well on various computer systems which differ not only by make or color, but also by operation systems (eg: A music player like Winamp or Windows Media Player will work perfectly well b/w computers running either WIndows 2000 or Windows XP)

2.) Registry: Its the place which stores every detailed information related to programs, applications, s/wares installed on ur system, it is like a so called "yellow pages" but the only difference is you do not look into it for answers, only the operating system does that (as only it understands it better, but advance level people also edit registry).

3.) Plug and Play: Its a facility provided by various operating systems which does not require the user (you) to install s/ware for each and every "commonly used" devices like Pen drives, CD ROMS, DVD ROMS, Writers, Monitors, keyboard, mouse etc.. and as the name suggests, You just plug the device and its ready to play (or use).

4.) Compatibility: the basic mantra b/w operationg systems(O.S) is the cross platform compatibilty which means an application designed for a particular O.S will work on the same company's other version of the O.S without much changes.
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Cheers n e-peace....

[dheeraj_kumar]

Its simple.

Most settings in windows are stored in the registry. So, applications do not need to search for settings, rather they can use the registry to store and retrieve their settings.

[Adam Cruge1]

First of all I want to thank both of you for helping me. But still I have some confusion that I want to clarify. Please help.
Q1. What does it means by ‘Standards’ in the text I provided earlier?

Q2. From that text I understood that ---Microsoft has certain organization of settings for various components (like file associations, Plug and Play configuration data, printer settings, application settings, and much more settings, and much more) in a certain place of Registry.
Am I right?
Q3. In the text I provided earlier it says ---“Applications that follow these standards are more likely to work well with the operating system, not to mention other applications, because they're all looking for the same settings in the same places.”
That means software during installation checks the Registry structure.

i) But what is it in the software that causes the software to check the Registry?
ii) And how the software understands it is compatible with a particular Registry?
iii) What checking does the software do to understand its standard matches with the standard of the Registry?
[Recently while learning VB I created a set up file of a software, I call it calculator, without thinking of registry.]

[dheeraj_kumar]

1. Standards = Default settings provided by Microsoft or set by Windows itself according to the configuration of the computer.
2. Yep.
3. Yep.

i) The software is written that way. Almost all system-based programming languages have a mechanism to access the registry. Whatever it is, it converges on http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/libr...71(VS.85).aspx

ii) The structure of registry is universal. The values can differ, but the basic structure never changes. There is nothing called a particular registry. Every registry is the exact same thing, just the values differ, and some may have more data depending on their comp & windows configuration.

iii) Check the link I provided. It has a registry function reference.

[ashu888ashu888]

^^ as simple as it can be explained