I would suggest two things. One is to stick with basic WinForms or Console applications, and focus on one small thing at a time, such as reading/writing a file, using collection classes, creating and using a class library, etc. until you are very comfortable with C#, the IDE, and these three project types: WinForms, Console, Class Library. The second thing I would suggest is NOT messing with the registry just yet while you are learning. The registry is vital to Windows and should your program logic be off, your entire system may become unbootable. When you focus on tdeveloping your building blocks, you'll start to naturally see how to combine them to create the solution you want.