I would agree that the Win7 behaviour seems more appropriate. It would be better to have the call indicate missing data so that the user can then determine what action to take. As it stands you get the same return for a defined key with no value as you do for a completely absent key.

A useful return would indicate whether the file, section or key are absent.

As an aside, given my recent introduction to KiXtart, what is your preferred method of storing config data if you rarely use INI files in this way.

Cheers, Innes