Question

I want to do some initialization of various things at runtime of my WinForms application. I’m looking specifically at the Program.cs file that every WinForm application has. In it, I see:

[STAThread]
static void Main() {
    Application.EnableVisualStyles();
    Application.SetCompatibleTextRenderingDefault(false);
    Application.Run(new frmMain());
}

I know that this is what starts up the application and creates the initial form (in my case, an instance of frmMain).

Can I not just put my initialization code before Application.Run()? The initialization I need to do is to check a few registry entries, create them if necessary, and connect to a database. Will any feature not be available to my instantiation code if I put it before Application.Run()?

Answer 1

A Windows Forms application starts when the Main method is called. You can implement initialization procedures on the Main function. However, to initialize a Windows Forms application fully and start it routing Windows Forms events, you need to invoke Application.Run.

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