Welcome to our book on Visual C++. This book begins where introductory books on Visual C++ stop. In this book, we get into Visual C++ and push it as far as it will go. We work from intermediate Visual C++ all the way through truly advanced topics, putting this powerful package to work for us.

There’s little doubt that Visual C++ is the premiere programming package for serious Windows programmers today. There’s simply no other widely distributed package that can compare in terms of programming depth, strength, and extent. If you can do it in Windows programming, you can do it in Visual C++.

The sheer scope of Visual C++ frequently means that programmers remain ignorant of what’s available to them, and it’s no wonder, given the difficulty of finding and becoming familiar with the various aspects of Visual C++ programming. That’s where this book comes into play. We’re going on a guided tour of Visual C++, from the intermediate level up through the advanced level.

We start with intermediate topics such as the ins and outs of MDI and menus, as well as how to use different kinds of windows from the Microsoft Foundation Classes (MFC) arsenal: splitter windows, HTML windows, edit windows, and more. Then we put all those aspects of Visual C++ programming together in real-world applications.

From there, we increase our Visual C++ power with graphics work such as screen capture and working with metafiles, 32-bit memory handling such as process-to-process communication, connecting to the Internet and building a full Web browser, working with multithreaded programs, using Windows hooks, creating DLLs, working with OLE and COM, working with the Windows Registry, creating ActiveX controls, and much more.