Win32 development. Standards

A call to all Win32 developers... I'm developing an application in C using plain Win32. I wanted to ask about Windows development standards regarding these things:

• Is there a standard Windows error log api? For example if my client uses my app and it crashes, I would like them to send me the error log and I would prefer this being a standard location so the开发者_运维问答y can maybe access it with a standard Windows log utility.

• My app needs to store settings information. I think the registry is the standard utility for this task. Is that right?

• My app needs to store and retrieve files that it downloaded from the internet - images, executables etc. Is Application Data/myapp the standard location to store this type of information?

• My app needs a very straight-forward database - I'm using CSV for this. I basically need to store and retrieve this type of data so I'm just serializing a .csv file from Application Data/myapp. Is there a better Windows standard way of doing this?

That's all for now :). Thanks!

Is there a standard Windows error log api?

There is the Windows Event Log, but I don't think you want a typical user having to go into it to extract your logged information.

You probably don't want to log by default, unless you're shipping questionable pre-release code. When a user is experiencing problems, then you have them turn logging on. In this case, I recommend placing the file somewhere that typical users have experience with, like My Documents.

By the way, if you're writing a standalone application and want the best possible information in the event of a crash, look into minidumps. Here is a Codeproject sample.

My app needs to store settings information

Yep, registry.

My app needs to store and retrieve files

Yes, App Data. Just be sure to use SHGetFolderPath and CSIDL_APPDATA.

My app needs a very straight-forward database

There's nothing wrong with CSV for simple data. You could store the data in XML and use MSXML to process it, if you prefer. I've used SQlite in the past when I needed fast, lightweight storage of more complicated data.