Restoring Result Views
A result view must be restored if it is revisited through the navigational history offered by the MMC Back/Forward buttons, or if it is displayed after a saved console file is loaded. The IComponent2 interface, introduced in MMC 2.0, is implemented by snap-ins so that snap-in-specific details of a view can be restored. An example of a snap-in specific detail is the case where a snap-in modifies a result view in response to a snap-in provided menu item; MMC will not recognize this view setting.
In MMC 1.1, a snap-in implemented the IComponent::GetResultViewType method to inform MMC of a result view type, and the snap-in responded to MMCN_RESTORE_VIEW notifications (through the IComponent::Notify method) to restore the view. However, the use of IComponent::GetResultViewType and MMCN_RESTORE_VIEW notifications did not easily allow a snap-in to restore the view with snap-in-specific details, thereby impacting the user experience during view restoration.
MMC 2.0 makes snap-in specific settings easier to restore through the use of the IComponent2::GetResultViewType2 and IComponent2::RestoreResultView methods. When the snap-in provides result view information to MMC (during MMC's call to the snap-in's IComponent2::GetResultViewType2 method), the snap-in specifies a description for the result view. As the user makes changes to the view settings, the snap-in can internally maintain the view settings values. The snap-in does this by storing the specific data as part of the snap-in's view description information; note that MMC does not store the snap-in specific information. When the view is revisited, MMC restores the generic settings of the view, and the snap-in (notified through MMC's call to the snap-in's IComponent2::RestoreResultView method) uses the internally stored view settings to complete the view restoration.
Both of the IComponent2::GetResultViewType2 and IComponent2::RestoreResultView methods use a pointer to a RESULT_VIEW_TYPE_INFO structure. The snap-in and MMC know which view is being restored by the pstrPersistableViewDescription member of the RESULT_VIEW_TYPE_INFO structure. The snap-in must internally maintain data about the view associated with pstrPersistableViewDescription in order to apply snap-in specific view settings during view restoration.
In MMC 2.0, if a snap-in implements IComponent2, then its implementation of IComponent::GetResultViewType will not be called and its implementation of IComponent::Notify will not receive MMCN_RESTORE_VIEW notifications. As stated previously, in MMC 2.0, if the snap-in implements IComponent2, then MMC uses IComponent2::GetResultViewType2 and IComponent2::RestoreResultView to retrieve the result view type and inform the snap-in that it must restore the result view, respectively.
If the same snap-in is intended to also run in MMC 1.x, then the snap-in should provide a complete implementation of IComponent::GetResultViewType and the MMCN_RESTORE_VIEW handler in IComponent::Notify, as MMC 1.x uses these methods to retrieve the view type and inform the snap-in that it must restore the result view.
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