[TUT] SaveSettings/My.Settings - Program Starts

**Blubb1337** · 05-05-2010

This is basically what y'all know. However since someone asked this question I'm going to do a quick tutorial about it.

We want to get the number of times our program has been started.

Like on 1st program startup you get a messagebox and on further program startups you won't.

There are a lot of differernt ways, but I'm going to show you two ways:

My.Settings and SaveSettings(Registry)

Let us start =D

Start a new project as usually...

My.Settings

Go into your Solution-Explorer > Righ***1ck on your project > Properties

Now, click on "Settings" and simply edit the first line and use an Integer, hit enter afterwards. Name it to whatever you want, I named it "starts"

Now, we can actually use this integer.

Doubleclick on your Form so you will see the source code:

Code:

Public Class Form1

    Private Sub Form1_Load(ByVal sender As System.Object, ByVal e As System.EventArgs) Handles MyBase.Load

    End Sub
End Class

On program startup(Form1_Load) we want to read the current starts and add 1 since it recently has been started.

We declare an Integer adove form_load to read the setting.

Code:

Public Class Form1

  Dim i as integer

    Private Sub Form1_Load(ByVal sender As System.Object, ByVal e As System.EventArgs) Handles MyBase.Load

    End Sub
End Class

Moving on, we will now read the setting.

Code:

i = My.Settings.starts

Now, i contains the current program startups.

Code:

i += 1

Adding 1 to the current startups.

Saving the settings

Code:

My.Settings.starts = i
My.Settings.Save
My.Settings.Reload

Obviously self-explaining.

What you can do is:

Code:

If i = 1 Then
Msgbox("This is the first time you started this program")
End if

All in all it is..

Code:

Public Class Form1

  Dim i as integer

    Private Sub Form1_Load(ByVal sender As System.Object, ByVal e As System.EventArgs) Handles MyBase.Load
       i = my.settings.starts
   If i = 1 Then
   Msgbox("This is the first time you started this program")
   End if


       i += 1

My.Settings.starts = i
My.Settings.Save
My.Settings.Reload
       
    End Sub
End Class

However, if you know move your .exe to another path the settings will reset. To avoid this, we can use the registry.

SaveSettings(Registry)

Code:

GetSetting(appname as string, section as string, key as string, settings as string )

SaveSetting(appname as string, section as string, key as string, settings as string )

->

Code:

Public Class Form1

  Dim i as integer

    Private Sub Form1_Load(ByVal sender As System.Object, ByVal e As System.EventArgs) Handles MyBase.Load

i = GetSetting(Application.ProductName, "Settings", "Startups", i)

If i = 1 Then
Msgbox("whatever")
End if

i += 1

SaveSetting(Application.ProductName, "Settings", "Startups", i)

End Sub
End Class

You may also use a streamwriter/reader but this is the worst way IMO

Enjoy =D