C++ Win32 API offline documentation? - c++

I'm learning win32 apps with C++. I've got a pretty good API reference, but it's from 1997. Is there a more modern version available for download?
My connection is horrendous so I'd like it to be fully accessible offline. Something akin to a chm or hlp file...searchable and up to date-ish.

If you install the Windows SDK, it comes with all the documentation as well. The download is enormous though, but at least you can do it all-at-once.

Here's another download which is just the documentation (and slightly out-of-date, but still covers 99% of the Win32 API): MSDN Library for Visual Studio 2008 SP1

For complete reference of Win32 API(of course the content is still slightly out of date) I keep both MSDN Library for Visual Studio 2008 SP1
and Software Development Kit Update for Windows Vista
Because for some reason the 2008 SP1 contains stripped down content.

Related

Change C++ target application to XP

I built a C++ application with Microsoft Visual Studio 2012, but when tried it in Windows XP, it returns "not valid win 32 application".
I found some similar questions in stackoverflow and the msdn blog, and all of them say to change the toolkit plateform to XP, but in my case i didn't find this option.
I tried to make an update to the ** C++ redistrubitable** , but this doesn't solve the issue.
Does anyone have an idea about the problem?
You need to build your app using windows xp targeting tool set. You can download it here. More info on msdn.
The Microsoft website offers a great description of creating and modifying Win32 Applications.
They even offer a video that gives you a step by step on creating such a thing and any other questions you may have regarding Win32 applications.
Also, you can download and build your application using Windows XP Targeting Tool Set.

Visual Studio /SUBSYSTEM:POSIX not appearing in 2008

I have installed visual studio 2008 Professional Edition and I am not able to set /SUBSYSTEM:POSIX option in one of the visual C++ projects. I also installed Visual Studio Debugger addin from SUA but still same. Please see attached screenshot for version information.
Thanks
Niraj Rathi
It's gone. However, Visual Studio does provide a bunch of header files to provide functionality that gets close (but not the same), such as direct.hfor directory operations.
Currently, the best way of getting POSIX on Windows is probably Cygwin or it's friends.
There is Windows Services for UNIX (SfU), but according to some it was quite close to what Cygwin was in 2006. Seeing how Cygwin and some of its comrads are live and well and SfU did not see an update in over half a decade, I would choose the former any day of the week.
If you are interested in a blast from the past, checkout this little nugget from 2006 which is Microsoft's official How to port from UNIX to Windows website. It seems rather useless, but funny what Microsoft thought is "useful" in 2006.

Other programs used to make C/C++ desktop applications besides Visual studio?

I'm unable to buy Visual studio. I'm just wondering if there's any other program besides Visual studio that can be used for developing C++ desktop applications.
Visual Studio has an Express edition which is free :)
For a non-Microsoft option, there is MinGW.
Microsoft offers free Windows SDK 7.1 with all compilers, headers and tools (nmake, all compilers, really good debugger etc.) for all supported Windows platforms. It, basically, full version of VS2010 tools without IDE (you have to use command-line one way or another). By the way, it has x64 compilers that are not shipped with VS2010 Express.
As an IDE I find Eclipse to be terrific. The amount of features and level of their customization are simply amazing and very useful. You can, most likely, configure Eclipse to run MS SDK command-line tools from it, but I haven't checked it myself.
You can download Visual Studio Express 2010 from Microsoft, it is free.
Can't go wrong with Visual Studio Express. It's free.
Ofcourse Visual studio express should be easy and free.
And if you need something to use in linux - http://qt.nokia.com/products/platform/qt-for-linux-x11/
another non-msft option is Eclipse:
http://eclipse.org/cdt/
Cygwin plus Cygwin Ports gives you a good approximation of the Linux development environment, for free, including the MinGW option (i.e., using GCC to create native Windows executables), Mono, KDevelop etc. etc..
Sharp Develop, DEVcpp, Mono D
but Visual Studio Express works just fine
QT is fine and cross-plateform. There is a QTCreator IDE with MinGW but you can use a plugin for eclipse to draw your application via eclipse CDT.
Qt. You can download latest versions here: http://www.qt.io/download/

Visual Studio 2008 C++ language support?

I've been developing a couple of C# tools recently, but primarily working with a lot of legacy Visual Basic 6.0 code (I know, I know...). For the C# development, I've been using Visual Studio 2008 Professional edition that I downloaded using our MSDN subscription here at work.
But, as a change of pace over the weekend, I was going to check out a complex C++ project that we have. However, when I went to open it through Visual Studio, it wouldn't open it saying that the .vcproj file type wasn't supported. I figured it was a compatibility issue and that the project file type had changed between versions of Visual Studio, but when I tried creating a new C++ application inside Visual Studio 2008 Pro, the option just wasn't there.
I've been searching online by way of Bing, Google, MSDN, and MSDN subscriber downloads to no avail. Nothing I've found so far explains why this is happening.
I have found the express edition of MS Visual C++ 2008, but I could not locate the "full version" of this part of Visual Studio.
Any help would be much appreciated.
It sounds like you haven't got it installed.
Go to Add/Remove Programs (or Programs and Features, or whatever Windows 7 calls it) and modify your installation. You'll get a list of checkboxes so you can install C#, VB.NET, Crystal Reports etc... and Visual C++. Check that checkbox and wait the hour or so for the installer to do its stuff.

How to add WTL and ATL to visual studio c++ express 2008

I start using the visual studio c++ express 2008 at home but there is no ATL in it.
How can I add ATL to visual studio c++ express 2008?
ATL 7.1 is now part of the Windows Driver Kit.
ATL was only included in older versions of the SDK. Recent versions of ATL share much code with MFC and are only available with the real versions of Visual Studio, i.e. not with VS Express.
So: to use ATL and/or MFC, you need to buy the Professional version of Visual Studio. If you are content with old versions of ATL, you can download old versions of the platform SDK from the Microsoft website.
http://codegem.org/2008/09/wtl-wizard-for-visual-studio-2008
In his modified script, replace VisualStudio to VCExpress.
You'll need to download the platform SDK and muck around with some dependencies to get ATL.
There might be some more "unsavory" ways to get MFC ;) if you catch my drift. Also many institutions have educational VS licenses which are free.
You just need to install Windows Platform SDK as described here