C# 3.0 Cookbook, 3rd Edition

Chapter 19. Toolbox

19.0. Introduction

Every programmer has a certain set of routines that he refers back to and uses over and over again. These utility functions are usually bits of code that are not provided by any particular language or framework. This chapter is a compilation of utility routines that we have gathered during our time with C# and the .NET Framework. The type of things we share in this chapter are:

• Determining the path for various locations in the operating system.

• Interacting with services.

• Inspecting the Global Assembly Cache.

• Message queuing.

It is a grab bag of code that can help to solve a specific need while you are working on a larger set of functionality in your application.

19.1. Dealing with Operating System Shutdown, Power Management, or User Session Changes

Problem

You want to be notified whenever the operating system or a user has initiated an action that requires your application to shut down or be inactive (user logoff, remote session disconnect, system shutdown, hibernate/restore, etc.). This notification will allow you have your application respond gracefully to the changes.

Solution

Use the Microsoft.Win32.SystemEvents class to get notification of operating system, user session change, and power management events. The RegisterForSystemEvents method shown next hooks up the five event handlers necessary to capture these events and would be placed in the initialization section for your code:

 public static void RegisterForSystemEvents( ) { // Always get the ...