Using the registry is a pretty simple API call to say place X here, read X if it exists, etc. If you need to start manipulating configuration files, then you n

Using the registry is a pretty simple API call to say place X here, read X if it exists, etc. If you need to start manipulating configuration files, then you need to deal with all the complexities of that. The registry is great for exactly this sort of config info. And on Windows, HKLM (HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE) is for system-wide stuff. If it were per-user config it'd go in HKCU (HKEY_CURRENT_USER).