>I've worked with it when I've need to cull out registry keys when an application fails to remove them in its uninstall process. No, I haven't studied it much beyond that -- I just presumed it was alot of what the .INI files used to be.

And did you say you like living dangerously? ;)

Neverminding my humor, it's far too easy to delete or alter a Registry key accidentally, which can make you machine inoperative.

>Also, maybe I haven't made the connection yet between registration keys and the Registry. I'm guessing that certain aspects of my application that I wish to parameterize (number of messages per month, for example), are actually encoded into the registry via registration keys. If this is the case, what do I use to help establish the code?

I'm going to be a bit sloppy about this, so bear with me.

As application programmers, we are usually concerened with what's called the application key. In most Windows apps, an application key is established under

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE]/Software/Companyname/Productname

(note that the structure beyond that seems to be option of the manufacturer). At this point, a given key may be either a variable with a value, or may have more keys in it, or both. As programmers, we may use the Windows API to store and retrieve values into this structure.

Note that writers of ActiveX objects and other parts of the operating system will be concerned with other parts of the Registry.

Is that any help?