Visual Basic 2012 Programmer's Reference

SUMMARY

Visual Studio provides many ways to store and use application configuration and resource information. Some of the most useful of these methods include environment variables, the registry, configuration files, and resource files. The My namespace and the Application object make working with some of these easier.

Store configuration information that changes relatively often in configuration files. Store less changeable resources that determine the application’s appearance in resource files. If you will distribute the application in multiple languages, use localized resource files to manage the different languages. If necessary, you can change the data stored in configuration and resource files and redistribute them to your users without rebuilding the entire application.

You can store small pieces of information between program runs in the system registry. Use databases, XML files, and other files to store larger amounts of data.

Using all of these techniques, you can make your application easily configurable. You can satisfy the needs of different kinds of users and customize the application without recompiling it.

This chapter explained ways that a program can save configuration and resource information using tools such as the registry, environment variables, and resource files. Generally, these kinds of data are of relatively limited size. If an application needs to store larger amounts of data, it generally uses a database or file.

Chapter 29, “Streams,” explains classes ...