In contrast to the first edition, Inside OLE 2, which was concerned only with 16-bit OLE, this second edition, Inside OLE, is oriented specifically toward 32-bit OLE development. Accordingly, there are some topics in this book that are available only on 32-bit OLE platforms such as Windows NT 3.5 and Windows 95. For the most part, however, what you'll find here is applicable to both 16-bit and 32-bit environments. The text in this book is written assuming 32-bit OLE, so where a difference exists with 16-bit OLE or where there is information relevant to 16 bits, you'll see a flag in the margin as shown next to this paragraph. This is your indication to look in the 16BITOLE.WRI file on the companion CD for more information.
One major difference between environments is that 32-bit OLE always uses Unicode strings, even on systems that don't support Unicode otherwise (such as Win95). Do keep this in mind as you work with OLE, and you'll see special-case handling in the sample code for Unicode/ANSI string conversion.