AFAIK it's a legacy thing.
In the old days before the Registry existed, ini file were the way to go.
Nowadays, depending which info you are requesting, Windows can hijack your
calls and returns the relevant info from the source, be that the Reg or the
ini file.
Nowadays Windows does not really use Windows.ini, but the Reg.
So Windows thinks you want the from there.

NickHK

"Christmas May" ...
Fellow Programmers,

I've gained some knowledge about ini files since my first posting.
However,
I still have one question remaining. Why/How does the following code pull
a
value out of the registry instead of from win.ini?

Private Declare Function GetPrivateProfileString _
Lib "kernel32" Alias "GetPrivateProfileStringA" _
(ByVal lpApplicationName As String, ByVal lpKeyName As String, _
ByVal lpDefault As String, ByVal lpReturnedString As String, _
ByVal nSize As Long, ByVal lpFileName As String) As Long

Private Sub readFromINI()
Dim sFileName As String, sHeader As String, sKey As String
Dim buf As String * 256
Dim length As Long

sFileName = "C:\WINDOWS\WIN.INI"
sHeader = "intl"
sKey = "sCountry"

length = GetPrivateProfileString( _
sHeader, sKey, "<no value", _
buf, Len(buf), sFileName)
MsgBox Left$(buf, length)
End Sub


Thanks in advance,

Christmas May