cross version

im in the process of making a short little windows app and i was looking for some input :D (this is where you post Fordy)

couple questions

i would like my app to be supported from 95-XP has there been any change in the XP registry or are the keys essentially the same?(looking to make my app run on startup)

secondly i want to make the process run into the background... i have come across a couple methods but they all seemed slightly hackish :(

that would be all :) and for the curious im just making a simple program to run distributed.net only at certain times in the day and after the time interval kill the distributed.net client

that fan gets kinda loud under 100% load ;)

Hmm...why me? :)

Most of the Registry APIS work the same on Win95 as they do on WinXP.....though I have noticed on occasion that they can behave differently - sometimes code will choke on Win98 that works great on WinXP...any material differences between platforms are detailed on MSDN.....but I found the best way was to test on 1 NT platform (NT4,XP,2000) and 1 Crapware platform (95,98,ME).....it often works fine though - NT just adds a little extra functionality here and there, and can be a little more stern on what you do....

For running in the background - just dont create a window or dialog.......but this often means that you cant interact with the app very easilly - and often you have to. Services are perhaps a better option - but they are more for NT platforms........

>>> NT just adds a little extra functionality here and there,

Like the security stuff, that doesn't work with 9x. Basically I agree with Fordy though, the basic registry concepts have not changed much over the years.

I still run a '95 system to check what I'm doing is compatible, not had a problem yet.