[OT] Win convention question

[Richard Gaskin]

xbury.cs at clearstream.com wrote:
> First of all you should delete you registry entries and application files 
> which is normal.
> 
> What is ultra bad is to delete the folder if there is any preferences. If 
> you need to reinstall
> you will have teh same problem as with runrev resetting all your prefs 
> again... Very bad...

Agreed.  What I've done instead is use the Application Settings folder, 
which is hidden from users be default.  Thanks to the handy tips at 
SonsOThunder.com I was able to find the constant that Win98 through XP 
uses to return the path to that folder:

   specialFolderPath(26)

So now I don't touch anything in the user's My Documents folder, only 
Application Settings.

I think I'll cover storing prefs in my next revJournal article.  There's 
far more to it than it would seem at first glance.

One of this byproducts of this odyssey is a bit of a disappointment in 
Apple:  it's a rare day when Micro$oft offers a clear usability 
advantage of Apple, yet Micro$oft has a stronger position on an app 
cleaning up after itself than Apple's "toss the app in the Trash and let 
the user figure out what to do with the prefs file" approach.

-- 
  Richard Gaskin
  Fourth World Media Corporation
  ___________________________________________________________
  Ambassador at FourthWorld.com       http://www.FourthWorld.com