MSDN User Guide

If you do a program, you cannot skip the document. If you do a program under WIN32, you cannot skip MSDN.
MSDN is a development book provided by Microsoft to a wide range of programmers. There are many places worth using. Someone asks how to use it. Here I will introduce it:
First of all, let me explain the structure of MSDN. MSDN generally has three CdS (including DVDs and richer content) and is released quarterly (in the month-year format ), it is best to install all (1) during installation. 5 Gb or so. The following content is provided in sequence (take July 2001 as an example ):
(The following content may span many classes, but it is basically in the MSDN order)
1. Update description and more browsing information (homepage and Welcome)
2 .. NET documentation
3. Visual Studio help library
4. Office developer documentation
5. Embedded device developer documentation
6. Platform SDK development documentation
7. Other documents (such as the newly added XML & SOAP Development Kit, Passport development kit, and Project2000)
8. Development documents of Windows Resource Packages (features and unique features of each platform)
9. Knowledge Base
10. Technical Articles
11. Background
12. Specifications (or White Paper)
13. Valuable books (for example, many MSPress books and excerpts from classic books)
14. Magazine excerpt
15. Example
The MSDN structure is like this. Next I will explain in detail 2nd. 3. 6. 7. 11. 13. 15 ., Other simple introductions. For the sake of simplicity, the specific name is represented by the Code.

1. In this section, you can learn the latest MSDN information, error reports, latest developments in MS, and access addresses for more information (of course, how to subscribe to the msdn cd, but we don't seem to need it anymore. Let's look for vendors in Zhongguancun ).

4. During Office extension development, such as vba, this can be used to find out the com Object provided by office. Of course, there are also many office teaching materials and troubleshooting, but I don't think we can use e-text. (For more information, see e-text ).

5. This part is actually to combine the help of the eVC and eVB embedded development tools of the two MS into the entire MSDN, the original documents can be found here, as a result, the comrades who developed the program under WinCE paid attention to it (I used to be a frequent user when developing the program for WinCE ).

8. This section describes the features of various Windows platforms, including the involved APIs, which can be used for cross-platform reference, but are basically unavailable.

9. The article here is numbered QXXXXX, which is a Q & A set on the MSDN website. There is actually a lot of valuable information, but there is no title, I can only refer to the "See QXXXXX" in the search and documentation sections. There are some important articles in it. I have collected them before, but I have lost my space and lost my mind...

10. This section describes some development modes and performance optimization suggestions, and lists the General Modes and organization methods for specific destinations in different categories. If you plan to develop large projects, you can refer to them.

12. This is actually a big collection of white papers with various specifications.

14. The articles here are from recent MSDN and other magazines, but they have not been compiled such as standard documents.

The following is a detailed introduction. You are a little patient:

2 .. Net documentation
As Microsoft's flagship product ,. Net, which contains all the documents. . Net specifications, configuration methods, api descriptions, and entry-level materials. Net is the best material in the absence of good information. I will focus on the following parts:
Inside the. NET Framework -- This section describes the key concepts, operating mechanisms, and related concepts of. net. Learn about. net from here;
Building. NET Framework Applications, Debugging, Optimizing, and Profiling, tracing ing. NET Framework Applications -- write and establish, debug and optimize the configuration, and place the. net environment, including the entire process;
. NET Framework Class Library -- the first part of Kingsoft dictionary translation is what is on the market ". net Development Manual "Book source, now know the source, why not use original information, but want to buy a book ?;
. NET Framework Tools-this general book is not introduced, but it is very important, the use of Tools provided by. net;
. NET Framework Configuration File Schema -- format and description of the. net Configuration File;
. NET Framework Samples --. net example;
This is part of the. net introduction. Do you suddenly find that the original information is on your side, but you do not know it?

3. Visual Studio help library
This part of content is probably of great interest to everyone, because it involves a lot of VS content (VC and VB users strongly desire ^_^ ). Expand this node and we can see exciting content such as Visual Studio Document, Visual C ++ Document, and Visual Basic Document. This is a collection of documents integrated into each software before VS6, I have done my best here. I will focus on the two parts of Visual C ++ Document and Visual Basic Document. Let's take a look at the other parts, which are similar to the two.
Visual C ++ Document:
1. Visual C ++ Documentation Map -- here is the index of this topic. You can easily find the VC, debugging VC, programming manual, ATL, MFC, STL library, C ++ syntax and standard, ODBC, RunTime, and so on;
2. What's new in Visual C ++ 6.0 -- the new features and libraries of VC6 are introduced here. in the future, What's new in VC7 will become ^ _ ^;
3. Getting started with Visual C ++ 6.0 -- it was originally a newbie. Unfortunately, it is canceled now. Maybe ms thinks that all old users get this version;
4. Using Vsiual C ++ -- this is a MS self-developed tutorial. It describes in detail and in sequence how to use VC6. The development mode can be described as a hand-taught tutorial, as long as E files are not too popular, you can get started with them, including: Visual C ++ Tutorials (VC6's preliminary tutorial ), visual C ++ Programmer's Guide (more in-depth programming topics), Visual C ++ User's Guide (User manual, including tool instructions ), glossary-this part is a Glossary, which can be found here;
5. Reference-This part includes two parts: Microsoft Foundation Classes and Templates, which are the Reference for the use of the MFC, ATL and ole db template libraries, ages and Libraries for Visual C ++, which includes the C ++ syntax specification and STL library user manual.
6. Samples-example programs in different categories. You can refer to them without worrying about any instances.
7. Compaq Alpha generator antion-this is a document under the Alpha processor, which is generally not referenced and provided to special people.

7. Other documents (such as the newly added XML & SOAP Development Kit, Passport development kit, and Project2000)
This part is one of the fastest-changing content, because Microsoft's new technologies are constantly released recently, and many important development kit documents are concentrated here, such as XML & SOAP ToolKit and Passport SDK, therefore, we need to pay enough attention to the content here. I will not list it any more. I think you can see it yourself.
I often look at this to find new directions, such as the current XML trend. Even if I cannot understand it, I can broaden my horizons. This is good for a programmer and has no harm. 11. Background
This section provides some big blueprints and specifications, including many aspects, including component object models, databases and message queues, Office applications, Web development, and Windows special platform applications, therefore, you can understand the introduction and application of these technologies, which is useful to everyone. I especially want to mention the Component Object Model. Here is the most primitive information about COM. It is best for anyone who has learned the COM technology to take a look.

15. Example
This part is actually the index of all examples. The hundreds of megabytes of sample programs spread all over MSDN not only show the development of Windows programs in the original sense, in addition, you can learn and understand the programming skills and norms from them, and then develop a good habit. What's more, there are a lot of practical program sections in it, and a little transformation will become practical. All SAMPLES are in the samples directory of the first chapter of the disc. You can copy them to the hard disk for future retrieval.

The above is the description of MSDN. I hope my brief introduction will make it easier for you to use it. The specific usage method requires your understanding, next, I will introduce how to use the index (in combination with the activity subset) and search functions in the MSDN system.

Index (with activity subset ):
This is one of the best functions I think in MSDN, because the index can be very complete and can be found in almost every place. Most skilled operators rely on the index for inspection.
With different activity subsets, you can easily retrieve valid information from various aspects. However, you only need to remember the previous key letter. If you don't believe it, try CBitmap, is it easy to use?

Search function:
This function is difficult to use, because it can often find a lot of useless information, just because the page contains the keywords to be searched; you can choose to sort by priorities or by category, but it is still not easy to find. The most useful thing is to search for articles in one of the "QXXXX" categories.

Well, MSDN will briefly introduce it here. Finally, I will give you the following sentence: It's hard to get used to MSDN, so be sure to stick to it. After getting used to it, you will find it useful.