Office® XP Development with VBA

Chapter Twenty-Two. Using the Windows API and Registry

Despite the power of VBA and the Office object model, there may be times when they just don't provide the functionality that you need in your custom Office application. Fortunately, VBA is extensible, meaning that VBA code can call procedures in the Windows Application Programming Interface (API) and in other dynamic link libraries. The result is that your VBA program can do essentially anything that can be done in Windows. In addition, a VBA program can access the Windows registry, which is a centralized repository for all sorts of information about applications, users, and option settings. This chapter covers these techniques.