C# 5.0 Programmer's Reference

Chapter 17 Configuration and Resources

What’s in This Chapter

• Environment variables
• The registry
• Configuration files
• Resource files
• Localization

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Most applications can take different actions depending on circumstances. Some applications decide how to act based on input provided by the user. Other applications use configuration information to determine how to behave.

For example, an application might display different kinds of data for different kinds of users. Data entry clerks, supervisors, managers, and billing specialists would all see different views of the same database. Similarly, you might configure an application for different levels of support. You might have different configurations for trial, basic, professional, and enterprise versions.

An application may also need to save state information between sessions. It might remember the types of forms that were last running, their positions, and their contents. The next time the program runs, it can restore those forms so that the user can get back to work as quickly as possible.

The .NET Framework provides many tools for storing and using application configuration and resource information. This chapter describes some of the most useful of those tools. It explains how an application can ...