• Coding portably makes your code base flexible. You can later move it easily to Unicode or MBCS.

• Using Unicode makes your applications for Windows 2000 more efficient. Because Windows 2000 uses Unicode, non-Unicode strings passed to and from the operating system must be translated, which incurs overhead.

• Using MBCS enables you to support international markets on Win32 platforms other than Windows 2000, such as Windows 95 or Windows 98.

Concepts