Saving Registry Settings

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Application Settings

Summary

How to persist application settings in C# by saving them to the registry.

Overview

We can make several real world applications with Microsoft Visual C Sharp. An application can hold many settings. Application settings is a common description of an program. But there are no alternative methods in C# to handle application settings.

The System.Configuration.AppSettingsReader class allows to read its properties but it is read only in run time. In Visual Basic, there are two methods GetSetting and SaveSetting which can be used to save settings in registry. But it is not available in C#. This article can be useful for beginners to save application settings.

The Class

The code is very easy. There is only one class for handling settings. You can copy the code, add the code to your project and use it. The name of the class is RegistryHelper.

public class RegistryHelper
{

}

The Code

using System;
using Microsoft.Win32;
using System.Windows.Forms;
namespace BDNotePad.Modules
{
public class RegistryHelper
{
private static string FormRegKey(string sSect)
{
return sSect;
}
public static void SaveSetting(string Section, string Key,string Setting)
{
        
string text1 = FormRegKey(Section);
RegistryKey key1 =
    
Application.UserAppDataRegistry.CreateSubKey(text1);
if (key1 == null)
{
return;
}
try
{
key1.SetValue(Key, Setting);
}
catch (Exception exception1)
{
return;
}
finally
{
key1.Close();
}

}
public static string GetSetting(string Section, string Key, string Default )
{
if (Default == null)
{
Default = "";
}
string text2 = FormRegKey(Section);
RegistryKey key1 = Application.UserAppDataRegistry.OpenSubKey(text2);
if (key1 != null)
{
object obj1 = key1.GetValue(Key, Default);
key1.Close();
if (obj1 != null)
{
if (!(obj1 is string))
{
return null;
}
return (string) obj1;
}
return null;
}
return Default;
}
}
}

Using the Code

The code is very simple and easy to use. In the Load and Closed event of a form, you can use the code.

For example:

protected override void OnLoad(EventArgs e)
{
    base.OnLoad (e);

    this.Width = Convert.ToInt32(RegistryHelper.GetSetting("Layout","Width",400));
}

protected override void OnClosed(EventArgs e)
{
    base.OnClosed (e);

    RegistryHelper.SaveSetting("Layout","Width",this.Width.ToString());
}

Conclusion

If you find this article useful or if you find any bugs, please let me know. Please send comments to mksamsks@yahoo.com.

May God keep you well.

History

• 7^th November, 2006: Initial post

About the Author

My name is Muhammed Kawser Ahmed. I am from Bangladesh. I am 15 years old and am learning C#. I study in grade 8. I like to share as much knowledge as possible with other people.