Some Terminology in .NET framework

Draw Data Matrix ECC200 in .NET framework Some Terminology

Most of the terminology I use in this book is fairly standard by now, but to avoid confusion, I'll take a moment to describe how I use some of it. Rather than give you hardcode paths, I use the standard environment variables that represent those paths instead. That way, when you read the instructions, you'll be able to apply them to your scenario regardless of whether you're using a dual boot configuration or where on your computer user profiles exist (C:\Documents and Settings or C:\Winnt\Profiles). Additionally, on your computer, the folder that contains Windows XP's system files might be in a different location depending on whether you upgraded to Windows XP, installed a clean copy of the operating system, or customized the installation path in an answer file. Thus, I use the following environment variables throughout this book. (You can see these environment variables by typing set at an MS DOS command prompt.) %USERPROFILE% represents the current user profile folder. Thus, if you log on to the computer as Jerry and your profile folders are in C:\Documents and Settings, you'd translate %USERPROFILE% to C:\Documents and Settings\Jerry. %SYSTEMDRIVE% is the drive that contains Windows XP's system files. That's usually drive C, but if you installed Windows XP on a different drive, perhaps in a dual boot configuration, it could be drive D, E, and so on. %SYSTEMROOT% is the folder containing Windows XP. In a clean installation, this is usually C:\Windows, but if you upgraded from Windows NT or Windows 2000, it's probably C:\Winnt.

Aside from the environment variables, I also use abbreviations for the various root keys in the registry. HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT and HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE are unwieldy, for example, and cause lines to wrap in funny places. To make the book more readable, I use the following instead: HKCR HKCU HKLM HKU HKCC HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT HKEY_CURRENT_USER HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE HKEY_USERS HKEY_CURRENT_CONFIG

Before we move on to the rest of the book, I thought I'd share with you why I love Windows XP so much. It makes all my various jobs much easier; it even made writing this book easier than any book I've ever written. For example, one of my favorite features is Remote Desktop. Before I got Windows XP, either I had to have several computers sitting on my desk to test instructions, dig around in the registry, take screen shots, and so on, or I had to walk back and forth between my lab and my office, which was a major productivity bust. For this book, I configured Remote Desktop on each Windows XP based computer in my lab so I could connect to them from my production computer. That way, I could have two or three Remote Desktop connections open, each with a different experiment running. Remote Desktop reduced writing time by a huge amount. It also reduced the number of times that I was tempted to experiment on my production computer (which can result in a day of lost work because I trashed the computer's configuration). Remote Desktop was worth the cost of Windows XP alone. And did I mention wireless networking Windows XP enables me to get out of my office in which I have 10 or so computers running, with the fan and hard drive noise that entails. Thanks to wireless networking, which Windows XP makes a no brainer to configure, I could find a quiet place in my house to hide while I was writing this book. No fans. No noise. And even when I was hiding in the bedroom, I could still connect to the computers in my lab. Regarding the registry itself, there are a few changes that struck me right away. First Microsoft got rid of the dueling registry editors. Windows 2000 had two editors: Regedit and Regedt32. Both had strengths and weakness, and you had no choice but to flip back and forth between each. Windows XP combines both editors into a single registry editor. Another new feature is Console Registry Tool for Windows (Reg). Windows XP includes this tool by default, whereas in Windows 2000 you had to install it from the support tools. This makes it a more viable tool for scripting registry edits using batch files. And it's free!