Customer Reviews

Inside the Registry for Microsoft Windows 95: Developer's Guide to Tapping the Power of the Registry (Microsoft Programming Series)

5 star:		(0)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Inside the Registry did have a few tips, but the main focus was NOT to using the Registry. The author used Win95 desktop when ever possible to make changes. After browsing the book, I would say that the MS Resource book provided the same information.

The blurb on the back cover claims that this book is for "application developers, system administrators and even power users" but the claims would be better stated the other way round. This is a book written by an end-user, not a Microsoft insider, and is primarily concerned with explaining Shell features of the registry that the author has "discovered". It is reasonably well organised but reads like a compendium of the tips and tricks columns that one sees in popular magazines - how to customise icons, context menus, the desktop, etc.

If you are an end-user and want a consolidated source of this sort of information this book may be for you. If you are a developer who wants to understand the logical structure of the registry and the conventions for storing your own data in it then look elsewhere.

As mentioned in other reviews, this book is not for the serious developer. It is for an end-user. For developers I would recommend the book "Inside the Windows 95 Registry" by Ron Petrusha, published by O'Reilly and Associates.

Es un buen trabajo, pero es muy básico y especialmente a mí me ha dejado sabor a poco. Particularmente yo necesitaba algo más técnico y profundo.

Serious developers and experienced administrators should not read this book. This book will not tell you more than your other recourses. However, if you are a beginning developer or a user that wants to know how to safely change the Win95 Registry to customize your desktop then this book is for you. For the price, you can't beat it. Beginning developers that want to add functionality to their application and integration with the Windows environment will find how to do that in this book. It does provide a great foundation of what the Registry is and how it works. The understanding you gain from this book can be applied to the Windows NT Registry. There are some fundamental differences, but the concepts are the same. Again, the serious developers will not gain much if anything, but you got to start somewhere. The end user of Win95 can have some serious fun customizing their desktop with the information gained from this book. I will warn (just as Gunter Born does through out his book), changing your Registry directly can cause MAJOR problems and may cause your system not to boot-up. However, Gunter does explain how to make the changes safely. The reason that I give the book a 6 vs. 7 or 8 is because I believe the book does not go far enough for the serious developer. I am hoping that the Win98 / NT 5.0 Registry book will be improved in this area.